Trump ties Greenland demands to Nobel Prize in message to Norway leader

US President Donald Trump said he no longer felt compelled to think only about peace after failing to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and reiterated his demand for control of Greenland.

In a message to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Trump criticized the country for not giving him the prize.

In his response to Trump, Støre explained that an independent committee, not the Norwegian government, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.

CBS News, the BBC’s American partner, confirmed the message and its content.

“Considering that your country has decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for stopping 8 MORE wars, I no longer feel the obligation to think only about peace, although it will always be predominant, but I can now think about what is good and appropriate for the United States,” Trump said in the message obtained by US media.

“The world is not safe until we have complete and total control of Greenland,” he added.

Prime Minister Støre said he received the text message on Sunday in response to a text he and Finnish President Alexander Stubb had sent to Trump.

Støre said they had expressed opposition to proposed tariff increases in the Greenland conflict and stressed the need for de-escalation, proposing a three-way phone call on the same day.

Trump has made no secret of his desire to receive this annual award. He increasingly insists that the United States must take control of Greenland for national security reasons.

This sparsely populated but resource-rich Arctic island is well-positioned to have early warning systems for missile attacks and to monitor shipping in the region.

Trump has repeated that he wants the United States to buy Greenland and has not ruled out using military force against a member of the NATO security alliance to seize it.

Over the weekend, he said he would impose a 10% tariff on goods from eight NATO allies from February if they opposed his takeover plan, and threatened to increase it to 25% by June.

In his message to Støre, Trump said Denmark could not protect Greenland from Russia or China, and questioned “why do they have a ‘property right’ anyway?”

“I have done more for NATO than anyone since its founding, and now NATO should do something for the United States,” he concluded.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Monday that any decision regarding Greenland’s future status “rests solely with the people of Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark,” and called the use of tariffs against allies “wrong.”

Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt are due to meet NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday.

Last week, the Danish and Greenlandic governments, along with their NATO allies, decided to increase their military presence and exercise activities in the Arctic and North Atlantic.

Several European states have sent a small number of military personnel to Greenland as part of a so-called reconnaissance mission.

As Trump’s recent message states, he claimed to have ended eight wars since the start of his second presidential term last year.

The White House has previously listed these conflicts as between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, Pakistan and India, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Thailand and Cambodia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo.

BBC Verify examined Trump’s claims that include a number of “wars” that lasted only a few days, although they were the result of long-standing tensions, and in some cases – for example in Egypt and Ethiopia – there was no fighting to end.

Fighting also took place between Rwanda and the DRC, despite both sides signing a peace agreement.

The Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.

Later, when U.S. forces captured and expelled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, accusing him of drug trafficking and other crimes, Trump did not endorse Machado as the country’s next leader and instead supported Maduro’s vice president as interim head of government.

Machado, who has praised Trump, met with him at the White House last week and presented him with his medal. The Nobel Foundation said the prize could not “even symbolically be passed on or distributed further.”

What questions do you have about Donald Trump’s first year since returning to the presidency of the United States? Click here or use the form below.