BBC report on current US threats to Greenland, Denmark, and NATO allies.
I know you’ll never believe this, but all the talk about the US need for Greenland in terms of national security is bullshit.
Does the United States even need to buy Greenland — or do something more drastic — to accomplish all of Mr. Trump’s goals?
Under a little-known Cold War agreement, the United States already enjoys sweeping military access in Greenland. Right now, the United States has one base in a very remote corner of the island. But the agreement allows it to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases across Greenland, “house personnel” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.”
It was signed in 1951 by the United States and Denmark, which colonized Greenland more than 300 years ago and still controls some of its affairs.
“The U.S. has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants,” said Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen.
“I have a very hard time seeing that the U.S. couldn’t get pretty much everything it wanted,” he said, adding, “if it just asked nicely.”
But buying Greenland — something that Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers on Tuesday was Mr. Trump’s latest plan — is a different question.
Greenland does not want to be bought by anyone — especially not the United States. And Denmark does not have the authority to sell it, Dr. Olesen said.
“It is impossible,” he said.
In the past, Denmark would have been the decider. In 1946, it refused the Truman administration’s offer of $100 million in gold.
Today, things are different. Greenlanders now have the right to hold a referendum on independence and Danish officials have said it’s up to the island’s 57,000 inhabitants to decide their future. A poll last year found 85 percent of residents opposed the idea of an American takeover.
Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, has repeatedly scoffed at the idea of being bought, saying this past week, “Our country is not for sale.”
The relatively short, straightforward defense agreement between the United States and Denmark was updated in 2004 to include Greenland’s semiautonomous government, giving it a say in how American military operations might affect the local population. The roots of the agreement go back to a partnership forged during World War II.
Denmark has said that should the US – a fellow Nato ally – invade or seize Greenland, which is part of the Danish kingdom, it would mark the end of the western military alliance and “post-second world war security”.
Trump, however, claimed on Wednesday that the US would not desert Nato in a backhanded social media post that also criticised the alliance.
“We will always be there for Nato, even if they won’t be there for us,” he wrote on Truth Social. Russia and China would “have zero fear” of Nato without the US, he said. Addressing “all of those big Nato fans”, he added: “They were at 2% GDP, and most weren’t paying their bills, UNTIL I CAME ALONG.”
After one of Trump’s leading aides said on Tuesday that the US may be willing to seize control of the Arctic territory by force, European leaders rallied around Denmark and Greenland with a rare rebuke to the White House, declaring that Greenland “belongs to its people”.
Despite this, on Tuesday night, the White House said that Trump and his team were looking at “a range of options” to acquire Greenland, including using the US military, which it said was “always an option”.
But (French foreign minister, Jean-Noël) Barrot said that in a phone call on Tuesday, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, had told him that he had “ruled out the possibility of an invasion” of Greenland.
Good to learn of Rubio’s step back from the line. The alienation and mistrust of the U.S. that has been so cleverly built (and spread) by Trump et al is a great service to the main he apparently regards as his best friend, though I suspect Mr. Putin is no friend at all…