Photo: © TomKorcak – stock.adobe.com
Is Donald Trump willing to go to war with the rest of NATO over Greenland?
“I must say this very clearly to the United States. It makes absolutely no sense to speak of any necessity for the United States to take over Greenland. The United States has no legal basis to annex one of the three countries of the Kingdom of Denmark,” said Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark, in a pointed message directed at Trump, who is getting high on his own supply, as the kids say, after the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Trump, thinking he just bought Venezuela for a bargain-basement price, has his eyes again on Greenland, which he seems to think has potential for more golf courses?
Not sure there.
“We do need Greenland, absolutely, we need it for defense,” Trump told The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer in a phone interview on Sunday.
Somebody needs to tell him that the U.S. already has a deal in place with Denmark to host the Pituffik Space Base, a military base in the Arctic that we use for missile defense and surveillance.
Greenland is an 836,000-square-mile island – the land area is roughly a quarter of the size of the United States – with just 57,000 residents, 20,000 in the capital, Nuuk.
And it’s a money-loser – the main industry is fishing, and the island is heavily dependent on mainland Denmark for its sustenance.
Maybe Trump, who has gone belly-up as a business multiple times, is just eternally attracted to lost causes.
Anyway, Denmark doesn’t appear to be in a giving mood.
“The Kingdom of Denmark — and thus Greenland — is a member of NATO, and is therefore covered by the Alliance’s collective security guarantee,” Frederiksen said in her statement on Sunday.
“We already have a defence agreement between the Kingdom of Denmark and the United States that grants the U.S. broad access to Greenland. In addition, the Kingdom has made significant investments in security in the Arctic.
“I therefore strongly urge the United States to cease its threats against a historically close ally, and against another country and another people who have stated very clearly that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.