Trump says ownership of Greenland ‘is an absolute necessity’

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday shared his renewed interest in the US controlling the self-governing territory of Greenland, which is owned by Denmark.

“For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote in a statement announcing that he had selected Ken Howery to serve as ambassador to Denmark.

Greenland’s Prime Minister, Mute Egede, has already rejected Trump’s remarks and says in a statement: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long fight for freedom,’ according to Reuters.

Trump bought Greenland on several occasions during his first term as president.

He told reporters in 2019 about the island: “Strategically, it is interesting and we would be interested, but we will talk to them a little bit.”

“First we have to find out if they have any interest,” he added. “They’re losing a huge amount of money, so we’ll see what happens.”

At the time, Denmark said Greenland was not for sale, prompting Trump to cancel a trip he had planned to the country. He said in a tweet that Denmark is “a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will postpone our meeting, which is scheduled in two weeks per second.”

Miles Taylor, who was the chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration, told MSNBC in 2020 that Trump had asked him and other officials in 2018 if the United States could trade Greenland for Puerto Rico because, in Trump’s words, “Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor.“He said the conversation took place before DHS officials traveled to Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, to help with the recovery from Hurricane Maria.

Greenland, between the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean, is technically part of North America and is the largest island in the world. While most of Greenland is covered in ice, about 57,000 people live there.

The United States has considered buying Greenland at least twice, including in 1867 and then in 1946, when President Harry S. Truman proposed buying it for $100 million. Denmark rejected the offer.