Donald Trump has called it an "absolute necessity" for the US to own Greenland for national security reasons. He said this while commenting on his decision to appoint entrepreneur Ken Howery as the new US ambassador to Denmark. He is the former US ambassador to Sweden.
Greenland's Prime Minister Mute Egede said Greenland is not for sale and will never be for sale. "With regard to the above (Trump's statement - ed.) about Greenland, the Prime Minister's Office has no comments, apart from referring to the fact that the President of the Government of Greenland has stated that Greenland is not for sale, but is open to cooperation," the TV2 channel quoted the office as saying.
In turn, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's office declined to comment on Trump's words about buying Greenland, citing the Greenlandic prime minister's statement that the island is not for sale.
Greenland was a colony of Denmark until 1953. It remains part of the kingdom, but in 2009 was granted autonomy with the possibility of self-government and independent choices in domestic politics.
In 2019, a series of reports appeared in the media that Trump was considering the possibility of buying Greenland. Trump himself later confirmed to reporters that he was "strategically" interested in the issue.
Meanwhile, Greenland said the island was not for sale, and Denmark expressed hope that Trump was joking, calling the very idea of a sale absurd. Former U.S. Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor said in an interview with MSNBC in August 2020 that Trump was interested in whether Puerto Rico could be traded for Greenland. | BGNES
