Trumps threatens to impose tariffs on countries ‘if they don’t go along’ with his Greenland takeover

Trump has insisted for months that the United States should control Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and said earlier this week that anything short of the Arctic island falling into US hands would be “unacceptable.”

During an unrelated White House event on rural health care, he recounted on Friday how European allies had threatened to impose tariffs on medicines.

“I might do it for Greenland too,” Trump said. “I might impose tariffs on countries if they don’t agree to Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security. So I might do that,” he said.

He has not previously mentioned the use of tariffs to try to enforce this issue.

Earlier this week, the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met in Washington this week with US Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

This meeting did not resolve deep differences, but it did result in an agreement to form a working group – the goal of which Denmark and the White House offered sharply different public views.

European leaders insist that only Denmark and Greenland decide matters related to the region, and Denmark said this week that it is increasing its military presence in Greenland in cooperation with allies.

A relationship “we need to nurture”

In Copenhagen, a group of senators and members of the House of Representatives met on Friday with Danish and Greenlandic lawmakers, and with leaders including Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

Delegation leader Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, thanked the group’s hosts for “225 years of being a good, trusted ally and partner” and said “we’ve had a strong, robust dialogue about how we can expand that in the future.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, said after meeting with lawmakers that the visit reflects a strong relationship over decades and “it’s a relationship we need to nurture.” “Greenland needs to be seen as an ally of ours, not an asset, and I think that’s what you’re hearing with this delegation,” she told reporters.

The tone contrasts with that coming from the White House. Trump has sought to justify his calls for a US takeover of the island by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their own designs on Greenland, which contains vast untapped reserves of important minerals. The White House did not rule out seizing the area by force.

“To be honest, we heard a lot of lies, a lot of exaggeration about the threats to Greenland,” said Aja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic politician and member of the Danish parliament who participated in Friday’s meetings. “I would say mostly that the threats we are seeing now are from the American side.”

Murkowski stressed the role of Congress in spending and conveying messages from voters.

“I think it’s important to emphasize that when you ask the American people whether or not they think the United States acquiring Greenland is a good idea, the vast majority, about 75%, will say: We don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.

Along with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, Murkowski introduced bipartisan legislation that would prohibit the use of U.S. defense or State Department funds to annex or control Greenland or the sovereign territory of any NATO member state without that ally’s consent or authorization from the North Atlantic Council.

Inuit Council criticizes White House statements

Disagreement looms large in the lives of Greenlanders. “If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the European Union,” Greenland’s Prime Minister, Jens Fredrik Nielsen, said on Tuesday.

The head of the Greenland-based Nuuk Arctic Inuit Council, which represents about 180,000 Inuit from Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia’s Chukotka region on international issues, said continued statements from the White House that the United States should own Greenland provide “a clear picture of how the US administration views the people of Greenland, how the US administration views indigenous peoples, and small-numbered peoples.”

The issue is “how one of the world’s major powers views other peoples who are less powerful than them. This is really troubling,” Sarah Olsvig told The Associated Press in Nuuk.

She added that the indigenous Inuit people of Greenland do not want to be colonized again.