COPENHAGEN — Donald Trump’s increasingly overt threats to seize Greenland for the United States are unsettling Denmark, former Danish Prime Minister and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told POLITICO.
“I find it shameless that an American president can threaten an ally. Denmark is one of the closest and most reliable allies of the United States,” he said, speaking from the Danish capital. “I am concerned.”
Trump raised the possibility of acquiring Greenland during his first term as president, but has returned to the idea far more frequently in his second term. In an interview earlier this month he refused to rule out the use of force to take the island of 57,000 people, which is part of the Danish kingdom.
“I don’t rule it out. I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there. We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of, and we’ll cherish them, and all of that. But we need that for international security,” Trump told NBC’s Meet the Press on May 4.
The Wall Street Journal also reported that Trump has ordered U.S. spy agencies to boost their intelligence-gathering efforts on the Arctic island. The Danish government summoned the U.S. ambassador to lodge a protest.
Last week, Reuters reported that White House officials are exploring a Compact of Free Association with the Danish territory, an arrangement currently used with Pacific island nations such as Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands. Under such a deal the U.S. would provide Greenland with essential services, military protection and largely duty-free trade, though the island would maintain its independence.
Rasmussen, who was Danish PM from 2001 to 2009, underlined that Greenland “is part of Denmark and Greenlanders do not want to become Americans.”
He added that while under a 1951 treaty the U.S. has the right to set up bases in Greenland, in recent decades it has been reducing its military presence on the island.
“The fact is that Greenland is part of NATO,” he said. “If the United States is dissatisfied with the defense of Greenland … we would appreciate a strengthened defense cooperation with the United States.”
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