The prime minister of Greenland pushed back Sunday against assertions by President Donald Trump that America will take control of the island territory.
Greenland, a huge, resource-rich island in the Atlantic, is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a NATO ally of the United States. Trump wants to annex the territory, claiming it’s needed for national security purposes.
“President Trump says that the United States ‘will get Greenland.’ Let me be clear: The United States will not get it. We do not belong to anyone else. We decide our own future,” Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post.
Nielsen’s post comes a day after the U.S. president told NBC News that military force wasn’t off the table with regard to acquiring Greenland.
In Saturday’s interview, Trump allowed that “I think there’s a good possibility that we could do it without military force.”
“This is world peace, this is international security,” he said, but added: “I don’t take anything off the table.”
Greenland’s residents and politicians have reacted with anger to Trump’s repeated suggestions, with Danish leaders also pushing back.
Trump also said “I don’t care,” when asked in the NBC interview what message this would send to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has invaded Ukraine and annexed several of its provinces in defiance of international law.
Because it straddles the Arctic Circle among the United States, Russia and Europe, Greenland is a geopolitical prize that the U.S. and others have eyed for more than 150 years. It’s even more valuable as the Arctic opens up more to shipping and trade.
