Donald Trump says US will take Greenland 'easy way or hard way...whether they like it or not'

TOI correspondent from Washington: Denmark is changing Greenland’s name to Epstein Island so Trump will stop talking about it, a Danish comedian joked earlier this week. But it’s no laughing matter now. The “MAGA” drive to acquire the Danish affiliate, “the easy way or the hard way” is very much on the cards after US President Donald Trump doubled down – even tripled down – on the issue on Friday, saying Washington is “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”

“We're not going to have Russia or China occupy Greenland, and that's what they're going to do if we don't. So we're going to be doing something with Greenland, either the nice way or the more difficult way,” Trump asserted during a meeting with oil executives, hammering away at the theme after European leaders pushed back at the US claim on the icy island, with Denmark warning that its troops will “shoot first and ask questions later” if American troops were to invade Greenland.


Asked by a reporter if he was considering buying Greenland amid reports each of its 55,000 residents was going to be offered anywhere from $ 10,000 to $ 100,000 to support a US acquisition, Trump said “I'm not talking about money for Greenland yet. I might talk about that, but right now, we are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”

To a follow-up on why it is so important to own the island when the US has a military presence there which could be easily expanded to ensure security, Trump replied, “Because when we own it, we defend it. You don't defend leases the same way. You have to own it.”

“Countries have to have ownership, and you defend ownership, you don't defend leases, and we'll have to defend Greenland,” he repeated.

Trump also dismissed Danish claims on the island saying “the fact they had a boat land there 500 years ago doesn’t mean they own the land” – an astonishing line considering America itself, a continent away, was colonized by Europeans landing there on boats and eventually exterminating millions of Native Americans.

While Trump’s strong-arm approach has rattled European leaders, it is alarming even US lawmakers who find it difficult to get their heads around the raw use of military power against allies. In a video clip he posted online, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy expressed bewilderment at the prospect of the US going to war against Nato, of which it is a part.

“I kind of can't believe that I'm going to talk to you about the consequences of invading Greenland, but I am, because you have to take Trump seriously. Nobody thought that we were going to be invading Venezuela or running their country a few months ago, and now we are....Denmark is a Nato country, and the Nato Treaty says that if any member is attacked, then all the other members have to come to their defense. So what you are essentially talking about here is the United States going to war with Nato… You're talking about the US and France being at war with each other,” Murphy said.

While some Trump supporters are insisting that the US President has no intention of invading Greenland and his provocative remarks are part of his “negotiating style,” more hardline MAGA surrogates have no doubt he means business.

“Here's why Trump NEEDS Greenland: He isn’t building an ‘empire.’ He’s gathering a new Allied Powers against an Axis of China, Russia, Iran, and possibly – if they don’t CHANGE THEIR WAYS – a nuclear-armed Islamist caliphate called Europe,” said Glenn Beck, a conservative political commentator and radio host, reflecting the growing chasm between the U.S and the continent its Founding Fathers came from or trace their heritage to.