Trump escalates vow to seize Greenland during wild press briefing
Donald the Conqueror?
By Oliver Willis, Daily Kos Staff
A reporter asked Trump if he could assure that he would not
use military or economic coercion to assume control of the two territories, of
which he previously said he
wants to seize control.
“No. I can’t assure you on either of those two, but I can
say this: We need them for economic security,” he said, later adding that “it
might be that you’ll have to do something.”
Trump can’t seem to stop bringing up the potential purchase
of Greenland, which his son Donald Trump Jr. is currently visiting to reportedly
record a podcast.
“Don Jr. and my Reps landing in Greenland. The reception has
been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and
PEACE! This is a deal that must happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The “reps” Trump referred to are conservative activist Charlie Kirk of Turning Point and his incoming personnel director Sergio Gor.
“I am hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA.’ My
son, Don Jr, and various representatives, will be traveling there to visit some
of the most magnificent areas and sights,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday
evening.
Trump ally and financier Elon Musk has expressed support for
the fixation on Greenland.
“The people of Greenland should decide their future and I
think they want to be part of America!” he wrote on X.
Greenland is an autonomous territory within the kingdom of
Denmark. At a press conference on Tuesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette
Frederiksen said that the
island is not for sale, referencing a previous statement from
Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede.
“[Egede] has been very, very clear … that there is a lot of
support among the people of Greenland that Greenland is not for sale and will
not be in the future either,” Frederiksen said.
Trump’s fixation on Greenland isn’t new. As president in
2019, Trump canceled a
planned trip to the island when Frederiksen rebuked his proposal, calling it
“absurd.”
“Pissing everybody off by saying we’re just going to buy
them outright really bruises our bilateral relationship with the Danes and more
importantly ruins any kind of way for us to work this out with Greenlanders,”
Jim Townsend, a former senior Pentagon official who has worked on issues
related to NATO and defense policy in the Arctic region, told Politico,
Trump has also complained about control of the Panama Canal,
which was turned over to
the Panamanian government to fulfill a treaty in 1999. After Trump claimed that
China controls the canal and that the United States needs to reassert control
of the vital shipping lane, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino rebuffed him.
“Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent
zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be,” he said in a video released in
December.
Before even taking office, Trump has already set off international friction with
Denmark, Panama, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Who will be next?
