Trump threatens tariffs on countries that do not support his plan for Greenland | International

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has threatened this Friday to impose tariffs on countries that do not support his plan to annex Greenland. “I could impose tariffs on countries that do not support Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security,” the president said at a meeting with farmers to discuss health issues in rural areas.

Trump said these words shortly after it became known that his special envoy for Greenland, Jeff Landry, will travel to the island next March. “I think we must reach an agreement. Finally, we are having a serious debate about what an association, a cooperation or a dialogue, a better relationship with Greenland would be like,” Landry said this Friday during an interview with the conservative channel. Fox News.

In parallel, a delegation of congressmen from the United States has traveled to Denmark to meet this Friday with the country’s authorities in order to address the issue of American claims on the Arctic island and “lower the rhetoric” of the White House, as they have declared.

Trump assured that he is in contact with NATO to try to open a negotiation path over Greenland. Asked by journalists if he would be willing to leave the Atlantic Alliance if it did not help him take over the Arctic island, he said that “NATO has been dealing with us in Greenland. We need Greenland urgently for national security. If we don’t have it, we will have a vacuum in national security, in terms of what we are doing in terms of the gold dome and all the other things.” He also added just before getting on the plane to leave for his mansion in Mar-a-Lago (Florida), where he flies every weekend: “We have many investments in the military field. We have the strongest army in the world that is getting stronger and stronger. And you saw that with Venezuela. That was seen with the attack on Iran, with the possible loss of its nuclear capacity. So yes, we are talking to NATO.”

Landry, who is also governor of Louisiana, has revealed that he plans to visit Greenland next March to accelerate talks that allow for a agreement for the annexation of the island by the United States. The White House special envoy has explained that he is not interested in holding meetings with local authorities, but with Greenlandic citizens. Landry said he wants to offer Greenland’s nearly 56,000 residents opportunities to “improve their quality of life” in exchange for a greater US military presence and access to rare earth deposits. The Louisiana governor drew on his roots to describe his approach to negotiations as a strategy of “culinary diplomacy.”

“The president takes himself seriously strengthening the Monroe Doctrine. “This is something that should have happened 20 years ago,” he said on Fox, while recalling: “The Chinese have built more icebreakers in one year than the United States has in the entire history of the country. They don’t build those icebreakers for fun. They build them to be able to control the Arctic. And the president knows it.”

This week, a delegation from Denmark and Greenland traveled to Washington to meet with US authorities. “The president has made his priority very clear: he wants the United States to acquire Greenland,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said yesterday.

The European representatives acknowledged after the meeting with the US authorities that they had not managed to change the White House’s mind about their aspirations to take over Greenland no matter what. The head of Danish diplomacy, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, even had to deny Leavitt this Fridaywho had also assured during his daily press conference that the working group that was agreed to be created bilaterally aims to “hold technical conversations on the acquisition of Greenland.”

Upon his arrival in Copenhagen from Washington, Rasmussen stressed in a message on his social networks: “We have made it very clear: the sovereignty of the Kingdom is a red line. One cannot buy or take Greenland. In 2026 we will be trading among the people, not with the people,” wrote the Danish Foreign Minister.

The expansionist desires of the White House are not, however, the position of the entire political class or that of the American population. That is the message that has been brought to Copenhagen the bipartisan delegation of American congressmen and senators who began a two-day visit to Denmark this Friday, where they were received by the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, and her Greenlandic counterpart, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, as well as by Danish deputies.

“In times of growing instability, we need our allies more than ever and this trip will send a clear message that Congress continues to stand with Denmark and NATO,” Democratic Senator Chris Coons, who heads a delegation made up of eleven congressmen and senators, including Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Thom Tillis, had stated when announcing the legislative mission. “This is a delegation that has made it clear that it does not think we should acquire Greenland, not even by buying it nor of any form of acquisition by military force.”said Republican Murkowski, senator from Alaska, already in the Danish capital. As he stressed in statements to the press, the idea is to try to “lower the rhetoric” coming from the White House and make it clear that “public opinion in the United States clearly says, 75%, that it does not think that we should acquire Greenland, neither by purchase nor by annexation.”

“We want to show solidarity, that both parties (Republican and Democrat) believe that Greenland should make a decision for itself about its future,” said Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who has described the Trump’s repeated statements about the Arctic island of “unnecessary and dangerous advances.” “We should work through NATO. That is where we are all going to find common ground,” he insisted on the same day that the Atlantic Alliance confirmed that next Monday, its Secretary General, Mark Rutte, will meet in Brussels with the Danish Minister of Defense, Troels Lund Poulsen, and the Foreign Minister of Greenland, Vivian Motzfeldt, who participated on Wednesday in the meeting at the White House with the Vice President, JD Vance, and the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to discuss the future of the autonomous island.

They are not the only ones. Opposition in the US Congress to Trump’s desire to seize Greenland is growing. The former leader of the Republican majority, Mitch McConnell, issued a serious warning to the American president about its position with the arctic island. During an intervention in Congress last Wednesday, he launched an unusual criticism from the Republican caucus: “Unless the president can demonstrate otherwise, (Trump’s proposal to annex Greenland) is very simple: incinerate the hard-earned trust of loyal allies in exchange for no significant change in US access to the Arctic.” And he added: “Pursuing this provocation would be more disastrous for the president’s legacy than the withdrawal from Afghanistan was for his predecessor.”

Several dozen military personnel and liaison officers More than half a dozen European allied countries are already in Greenlandat the invitation of Denmark, on a “reconnaissance” mission to explore the possibilities of a broader military operation in the future, under NATO supervision. Belgium announced this Friday that next Monday it will also send an officer to the Arctic island. Meanwhile, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has indicated that Spain will make a decision on the matter when, after “exchange” with its European partners, it has a “composition of place.”