‘We Don’t Want To Be Americans,’ Greenland’s Premier Says, but Leaves Trump an Opening

President Trump isn’t taking “no” for an answer on acquiring Greenland. Although the self-governing territory and its colonial authority, Denmark, insist the island isn’t for sale, Republicans in Congress are backing the plan to expand America’s boundaries northward. “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,” Mr. Trump wrote Sunday on Truth, “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” In his inaugural address, he said that his America will be one that “expands our territory” and pursues “our manifest destiny.”On Monday, Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee introduced “The Make Greenland Great Again Act.” It would direct Congress to support negotiations to acquire the autonomous Danish territory, which Mr. Ogles called “essential” to America’s “national security” and economic interests.Greenland’s prime minister, Mute Egede, announced on Monday that he’ll meet with Mr. Trump. Greenlanders, he said, “do not want to be” Danes or Americans and “are not” and “will not be for sale.” But he stressed “cooperation and trade with the whole world, especially with our neighbors.”Read with Mr. Trump’s optimistic eye, Mr. Egede’s remarks left the door ajar. Greenlanders wouldn’t need to become Americans to seal the deal. They could retain territorial status under Washington instead of Copenhagen, short of the 51st star on America’s flag.Demark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has also said that Greenland isn’t on the market, the same response his predecessor gave Mr. Trump’s overture in 2019. The Self-Government Act of 2009 empowers Greenland to vote for independence, subject to approval by the Danish parliament.“I like thinking big,” Mr. Trump wrote in “The Art of the Deal,” his 1987 book. “I always have. To me it’s very simple: if you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.” His design on Greenland, the world’s largest island, carries forward this philosophy with an eye on countering foes.An analyst at the Royal Danish Defense College, Marc Jacobsen, told Voice of America News on Monday that there’s “no doubt” that Greenland is “geostrategically important in defending the U.S. national security against Russian missiles,” whose shortest route to America is over the island.Russia and Communist China are both ramping up their military presence in the waters around Greenland. America has a 200-strong presence at Pituffik Space Base on the island’s northwest coast, providing missile defense and space surveillance. American hawks hope to expand that footprint. A former NATO supreme allied commander, Admiral James Stavridis, in an interview with the 77WABC owner, John Catsimatidis, on January 10, called Greenland a “strategic goldmine” Added he: “We could do an awful lot in terms of business, investment” and “box out the Russians, box out the Chinese.”Mr. Stavridis said, “It’s not a crazy idea.” He noted that the island “protects approaches to our own country” and is “geographically very important … full of strategic minerals, rare earth, probably a lot of gold. It’s got a lot of natural resources.” It’s a sign of the reactionary forces opposing Mr. Trump that an idea which has been raised and attempted several times would be deemed “crazy.” America may not have added a new state since Hawaii in 1959, but the nation has its current borders by purchasing territories along the way.Denmark sold what is now the United States Virgin Islands in 1917. If buying those small dots in the ocean was acceptable, why not think bigger? American presidents before Mr. Trump have asked that same question, and made pitches for Greenland in 1867, 1910, 1946, and 1955.In 1946, America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff listed Greenland as one of three key international locations for military bases. President Truman offered the equivalent of over $1.6 billion in gold bullion for the island, land in Alaska, or a 99-year lease. The Danes rejected the offers.During World War II, America occupied Greenland after Denmark surrendered to Nazi Germany. After the war, Washington rebuffed Danish attempts to get them to leave, negotiating the Greenland Defense Agreement of 1951 to sanction the military presence and assume the island’s defense.The Danes and Greenlanders seem as resistant to a transfer of ownership as ever. Yet don’t expect Mr. Trump, who made his fortune in real estate, to stop thinking big. America’s future is in the north as it once was in the West. Manifest destiny calls, and President Trump aims to be the one who answers its call.

‘We Don’t Want To Be Americans,’ Greenland’s Premier Says, but Leaves Trump an Opening

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