Donald Trump has said “it may be a choice” for the U.S. between pursuing his ambition to take control of Greenland and keeping NATO intact. 

The U.S. president was asked in a two-hour interview with the New York Times on Jan. 7 whether acquiring Greenland mattered more to him than preserving the 76-year-old military alliance — a question that has taken on new urgency for America’s European allies in recent days as Trump and his colleagues have escalated their rhetoric about obtaining the self-ruling Danish territory.

Trump did not answer the question directly but acknowledged that his administration may have to choose between the two, according to the newspaper’s account of the conversation published on Thursday.

Trump, when asked why he wanted the U.S. to control Greenland, said: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do with, you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”

The U.S. president also told the Times he did not feel answerable to international law and was constrained only by his own conscience. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,” he said.

“I don’t need international law,” he added.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned on Jan. 5 that an American invasion of Greenland would spell the end of the military alliance. “If the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops, including NATO and thus the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War,” she said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, in his annual foreign policy address on Thursday, also said Washington was “gradually turning away from some of its allies and breaking free from the international rules that it used to promote.”

Trump, long skeptical of NATO, cast fresh doubt on his commitment to the alliance this week, saying he wasn’t convinced it would come to Washington’s aid in a crisis. “I DOUBT NATO WOULD BE THERE FOR US IF WE REALLY NEEDED THEM,” he posted on Truth Social, although he added that the U.S. would continue to support its NATO allies.