White House discussing “range of options” for acquiring Greenland, including U.S. military takeover by force, Leavitt says
The White House said Tuesday that officials were discussing a wide range of options for acquiring Greenland, including using the U.S. military to take it by force.
Senior administration officials are also discussing the possibility of acquiring Greenland from Denmark or entering into a free association agreement, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Reuters was the first to report these developments.
“President Trump has made it clear that the acquisition of Greenland is a U.S. national security priority and is vital to deterring our adversaries in the Arctic region,” Leavitt said. “The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy objective and, of course, reliance on the U.S. military is always an option available to the Commander in Chief.”
President Trump wants this issue to be resolved before the end of his term.
Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, has once again become a topic of heated international discussion, after White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told CNN on Monday that it was “the official position of the U.S. government…that Greenland should be part of the United States,” and after Mr. Trump said over the weekend that the United States needs Greenland.
Denmark has long pushed back against the Trump administration’s interest in Greenland, reiterating that rebuke this week. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said a US military move to take control of Greenland would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance. Denmark is a member of NATO, and NATO Article 5 states that if a NATO ally comes under armed attack, all members will consider this an attack on them as well and will do what they need to help the nation under attack.
“If the United States chooses to militarily attack another NATO country, then everything will stop,” Frederiksen told local media on Monday. “That is, including our NATO, and therefore the security provided since the end of the Second World War.”
Mr. Trump insists that Greenland is essential from a national security perspective, even though the United States already operates a base there.
The debate over Greenland comes after the entry of the US army into Venezuela and captured Nicolas Maduroand as Mr. Trump says, it is the United States that will lead the country for the moment.
