President Donald Trump has called for opening “immediate negotiations” for the US to acquire Greenland.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Trump said, “This enormous unsecured island is actually part of North America,” adding, “That’s our territory.”
In his speech, Trump insisted that he wants to “get Greenland, including right, title and ownership,” but said that he wouldn’t employ force to achieve that.
“What I’m asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located. It’s a very small ask compared to what we have given them [NATO] for many, many decades.”
Donald Trump
He urged NATO to allow the US to take Greenland from Denmark.
NATO has held firm since the dawn of the Cold War but now is facing an unprecedented test given Trump’s demands.
The US President even added an extraordinary warning, saying that alliance members can say yes “and we’ll be very appreciative. Or you can say, ‘No,’ and we will remember.”
“We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be frankly unstoppable. But, I won’t do that. OK? I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
Donald Trump
Trump has spent weeks saying that the US will get control of Greenland no matter what it takes but his comments at the gathering of global elites were startling in how much further he went on just how he plans to do it.
Trump came to the international forum on the heels of threatening steep US import taxes on Denmark and seven other allies unless they negotiate a transfer of the semi-autonomous territory; a concession the European leaders indicated they won’t make.
Trump said that the tariffs would start at 10% next month and climb to 25% in June, rates that would be high enough to increase costs and slow growth, potentially hurting Trump’s efforts to tamp down the high cost of living.
The US President in a text message that circulated among European officials this week also linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize.
In the message, he told Norway’s Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace.”
His designs on Greenland could tear relations with European allies apart. Before Trump spoke, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed during his weekly questioning in the House of Commons, “Britain will not yield on our principles and values about the future of Greenland under threats of tariffs, and that is my clear position.”
French President, Emmanuel Macron in his address to the forum made no direct mention of Trump but urged fellow leaders to reject acceptance of “the law of the strongest.”
“It’s clear that we are reaching a time of instability, of imbalances, both from the security and defense point of view, and economic point of view.”
Emmanuel Macron
European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen warned that should Trump move forward with the tariffs, the bloc’s response “will be unflinching, united and proportional.”
She pointedly suggested in Davos that Trump’s new tariff threat could also undercut a US-EU trade framework reached this summer that the Trump administration worked hard to to seal.
“The European Union and the United States have agreed to a trade deal last July and in politics as in business — a deal is a deal. And when friends shake hands, it must mean something.”
Ursula von der Leyen
Trump Says US Is Booming
He also argued that the US is booming compared with Europe and its economy.
Trump said,“I love Europe, and I want to see Europe go good, but it’s not heading in the right direction,”
He added, “We want strong allies, not seriously weakened ones.” He also said of European countries, “When America booms the whole world booms,” and, “You all follow us down, and you follow us up.”
Trump is also expected to have around five bilateral meetings with foreign leaders, though further details weren’t provided. There are more than 60 other heads of state attending the forum.
READ ALSO: South Korea’s Former Prime Minister Jailed For 23 Years
