In an extraordinary speech at the World Economic Forum, the president said he was asking for territory that was "cold and poorly located.” He said the U.S. had effectively saved Europe during World War II and even declared of NATO: “It’s a very small ask compared to what we have given them for many, many decades.”
The president said the U.S. “probably won’t get anything” unless he decided to “use excessive strength and force” that he said would make the U.S. “frankly unstoppable.”
“But I won’t do that. Okay?” Trump said.
He added a minute later: “I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
Trump asserted that Denmark promised to spend “over $200 million to strengthen Greenland’s defenses” and then insisted it has “spent less than 1% of that.”
He was referring to a 2019 commitment from the Danish government, made during Trump’s first presidency, when he first floated the idea of the U.S. taking control of the semiautonomous territory of Denmark.
Copenhagen has not disputed that the implementation of that commitment has been slow.
The president has spent weeks saying that the U.S. will get control of Greenland no matter what it takes, arguing that Washington should be in charge there to counter threats in the surrounding Arctic sea by Russia and China. His Davos remarks articulated what that push for control might entail more clearly than before, however.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said he was encouraged by Trump's comment about not using U.S. military force but called other parts of the speech “a way of thinking about territorial integrity that does not match the institutions we have.”
“Greenland is part of NATO. Denmark is part of NATO, and we can exercise our sovereignty in Greenland,” Løkke Rasmussen said.
In his remarks, Trump also argued that the U.S. is booming and its economy is strong, in sharp contrast to Europe.
“I want to see Europe go good, but it’s not heading in the right direction,” said Trump, who also noted, “We want strong allies, not seriously weakened ones." He said of European economies, “You all follow us down, and you follow us up.”
