Donald Trump says buying Greenland is ‘absolute necessity’

What’s new

Donald Trump has said that ownership and control of Greenland is an “absolute necessity” for the United States.

“In the interests of national security and freedom around the world, the United States of America believes ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.

Trump made this statement in a post in which he announced PayPal co-founder Ken Howery as his candidate for the post of US ambassador to Denmark. Greenland is an autonomous region of Denmark.

Why it matters

During his first term in office, Trump floated the idea in 2019 that the US could buy Greenland.

At the time, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen rejected the proposal as “absurd”.

Greenland is the largest non-continental island in the world and lies between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019 that Trump was considering acquiring Greenland for its natural resources and leaving it a “legacy similar to President Dwight Eisenhower’s admission of Alaska to the United States as a state.”

What you should know

The US has previously made requests to purchase Greenland. In 1867, a State Department report stated that the island’s location and natural resources would make it an ideal commercial property.

President Harry Truman offered to buy Greenland from Denmark in 1946 for $100 million in gold.

Vice President Nelson Rockefeller also reportedly discussed purchasing Greenland for its mineral resources in the 1970s The Washington Post.

Trump canceled a planned state visit to Denmark in 2019 after the country’s prime minister rejected his proposal to buy Greenland.

This comes as Trump has also said that the US could demand the return of the Panama Canal if the Central American country does not reduce its fees on American ships.

The Republican called Panama’s control of the crucial trade route a “complete ‘rip-off'” for the US on Truth Social.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino rejected Trump’s suggestion. “Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and will continue to be so,” Mulino said in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter.

The Panama Canal was handed over from the USA to the Central American country in 1999 following a treaty signed in 1979.

This is a groundbreaking story. More to follow.