© ViaMichelin.com
US President-elect Donald Trump has said that it is essential for Washington from a national security standpoint to take ownership of Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.
During his first term, Trump repeatedly voiced his intention to buy Greenland, calling the possible purchase "a large real estate deal." He argued that the Danish government would be eager to part with the world's largest island as providing funding for it hurts them "really badly."
However, the authorities in both Denmark and Greenland outright rejected the sale, to which the then-US president reacted by canceling his state visits to Copenhagen in 2019.Trump, however, returned to the idea of the US acquiring the autonomous territory in a post on his TruthSocial platform on Sunday.
"For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the US feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity," he wrote.
In the same message, the US president-elect named PayPal co-founder Ken Howery as his pick for Washington's ambassador to Denmark.
He described Howery as "a world-renowned entrepreneur, investor, and public servant," who had performed "brilliantly" during his tenure as US envoy to Sweden between 2019 and 2021.
"Ken will do a wonderful job in representing the interests of the US," Trump insisted.
Despite spanning an area of 2,166,086 sq km (about six times the size of Germany), Greenland is home to fewer than 57,000 people, as 80% of the island is covered with ice.
However,
it is rich in gold, silver, copper and uranium and the ocean shelf below its territorial waters is believed to have vast oil reservoirs.The island, which is part of the continent of North America, has access to the Arctic, where competition for dominance over natural resources and strategic routes between the world powers has been intensifying in recent years.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned in September that Washington's "desire for globalization and self-legitimization, to assert itself as a world policeman... is also extending to the Arctic region."
Moscow has taken notice of how the US-led NATO bloc is "stepping up exercises related to possible crises in the Arctic," he said.
"Our country is fully prepared to defend its interests in military, political and military-technical terms," Lavrov insisted.
Comment:
1)
From the same source:
23 Dec, 2024 17:45
Greenland hits back at Trump threat
The autonomous Danish Arctic island has announced it's "not for sale"
Greenland has rejected any idea of selling out to Washington after US President-elect Donald Trump said control over the Arctic island would be in his country's strategic and national interest.
The autonomous territory of Denmark is sparsely inhabited and mostly covered by snow and ice. Trump has raised the issue of buying the island in his first term at the White House.
"Greenland is ours," the island's prime minister Mute Egede said in a statement quoted by AFP on Monday. "We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom."
Announcing the nomination of the new US ambassador to Denmark on Sunday, Trump said that "ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity" for the US, "for purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world."
Trump did not specifically mention an offer to buy Greenland and it was unclear whether his phrasing implied the willingness of his incoming government to seize the island by force from Denmark, a fellow NATO member.
In August 2019, one of Trump's aides confirmed that the then-president wanted to "take a look at a potential Greenland purchase," describing it as "a strategic place" with a lot of valuable minerals.
The island sits on top of several strategic trade routes in the Arctic Ocean, as well as significant deposits of uranium and precious metals. Control over the island would also allow the US to claim around 900,000 square kilometers of the adjacent continental shelf.
Though Greenland is over 2.1 million square kilometers in size, it has only around 55,000 residents, almost 90% of them Inuit. Greenland has been recognized as Danish territory since the 1814 Treaty of Kiel. It was administered as a colony until 1953 and has enjoyed home rule since 1979. Since 2009, the island has also had a parliament and a government managing internal affairs, law enforcement, and coast guard duties. Greenland has two deputies in the Danish parliament and relies on Copenhagen for its security, foreign and monetary policy, and more than half its budget.
The island formally left the EU's economic precursor in 1985 due to a dispute over fishing rights, but remains tied to the bloc as part of Denmark.
Greenland has no borders with the US, but it does with Canada. The talk about Greenland (In Greenlandic: Kalaallit Nunaat, pronounced [kalaːɬːit nʉnaːt]) becoming a part of the US could be a warning to Canada as well.
Considering the historical trajectory of US foreign policy there are many examples of how interference in the affairs of foreign states has been carried out. Just because there is resistance in Nuuk, the capital, does not mean a takeover of some kind will not be attempted.
2)
Top Danish think tank: Denmark better keep eye on 'unpredictable' US as Russia only wants stability in the Arctic (Jan 2020) which has:
DIIS, which prepares researches for Denmark's government and parliament, said that Washington remains a key ally to Copenhagen, but acknowledged that it's not always easy to work with the Americans.
"The US is unpredictable and, as experience shows, isn't too sensitive towards the national and local priorities and interests of the host countries."
[...]
The think tank advised Denmark and other northern nations - Iceland, Finland and Norway - to carefully monitor not only the regional activities of Russia and China, but the US as well, the think tank said.
It's paramount for Denmark to boost its own potential in the Arctic in order to lower the dependence on the US and NATO, DIIS researches said in the report. They also suggested that the government develops a set of principles that would influence American drills and other military moves on the Danish territory more actively.
Since the report, the US has established bilateral military agreements with the Scandinavian countries including securing access to and presence at a number airfields. It would seem that the development has been 180 degrees opposite to what was recommended by the think tank. A few months before the above report, there was:
3) Below are other headlines from old articles related to Greenland
The Air Force said that most of the sightings remained 'unidentified' because the details were not precise enough. However, some of the reports contained enough description to rule out the UFOs as aircraft, weather phenomenon or paper lanterns. Not all of the sightings were centred over Denmark and one event over Greenland is attracting attention.
On the 5 January, 1981 at 12:50 a flaming, square disc was seen approximately 45 degrees over the frozen land near Thule Air Base. It then vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
Coincidentally, radar stations at the American base recorded an unidentified flying object on its radar at 12:50.
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he has control issues.
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