Trump calls Greenland ownership ‘absolutely necessary’

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday expressed his renewed interest in U.S. control of the self-governing territory of Greenland owned by Denmark.

“The United States of America believes that possession and control of Greenland is absolutely necessary for the sake of national security and freedom around the world,” Trump wrote in a statement announcing his selection of Ken Howery as ambassador to Denmark.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Mutt Egede has pushed back on Trump’s comments, saying in a statement: “Greenland is ours. We are not selling it and we never will. We must not lose our long fight for freedom. struggle,” according to Reuters.

Trump repeatedly proposed purchasing Greenland during his first term as president.

In 2019, he told reporters about the island, “Strategically it’s interesting and we would be interested, but we will talk to them.”

“First we have to find out if they are interested,” he added. “They’re losing huge amounts of money, so we’ll see what happens.”

At the time, Denmark said Greenland was not for sale, leading Trump to cancel his planned trip to Greenland. He said in a tweet that Denmark is “a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments that she has no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will postpone our original Schedule a meeting for two weeks later” next time. Miles Taylor, who served as Homeland Security chief of staff during Trump’s first administration, told MSNBC in 2020 that Trump asked him and other officials in 2018 if the United States could trade Greenland for Puerto Rico. , because in Trump’s words, “Puerto Rico is dirty and the people are poor. He said the conversation took place before Department of Homeland Security officials traveled to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico to help with recovery efforts from Hurricane Maria.

Located between the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, Greenland is technically part of North America and the largest island in the world. Although most of Greenland is covered in ice and snow, about 57,000 people still live there.

The United States considered buying Greenland at least twice, once in 1867 and again in 1946, when President Harry S. Truman proposed buying Greenland for $100 million. Denmark rejected the proposal.