Trump says Greenland is vital for America’s national security

President Trump insisted that the US needed to annex Greenland for US national-security interests, saying anything less than American control would be “unacceptable.”

Trump made the comments in a social-media post on Wednesday before senior Greenlandic and Danish officials were set to meet Vice President JD Vance to discuss the issue.

In a post on his social media site, Trump reiterated his argument that the US “needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security.” He added that “NATO should be leading the way for us to get it” and that otherwise Russia or China would — “AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!”

“NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES,” the President wrote. “Anything less than that is unacceptable.” Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, is at the center of a geopolitical storm as Trump insists he wants to own it.

Vance, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is to meet Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt in Washington later Wednesday to discuss Greenland.

Greenland is strategically important because, as their ice starts to melt, it opens up the possibility of shorter trade routes to Asia. That also could make it easier to extract and transport untapped deposits of critical minerals which are needed for computers and phones.

Trump said in Wednesday’s post that Greenland is “vital” to the United States’ Golden Dome missile defense program. He also has said he wants the island to expand America’s security and has cited what he says is the threat from Russian and Chinese ships as a reason to control it.

Following the White House meeting, Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt, along with Denmark’s ambassador to the US, are due to meet with senators from the Arctic Caucus in Congress.