President-elect Trump said Sunday evening on social media that the U.S. owning Greenland “is an absolute necessity,” in a statement announcing Ken Howery as his nominee to serve as ambassador to Denmark.
Howery, a tech investor who co-founded PayPal, was ambassador to Sweden in the previous Trump administration.
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump said in the Truth Social post.
On Monday, Greenland’s prime minister said the island isn’t up for purchase.
“Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom,” Múte Egede said in a statement, according to reports from BBC and The Guardian.
In late 2019, Trump said that buying Greenland, which is owned by Denmark, was “strategically” interesting, triggering an angry response from Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
“Denmark essentially owns it. We’re very good allies with Denmark. We protect Denmark […]
It’s important for us to start to tell ourselves the truth of who we are. The United States governemnt has been picking on smaller, weaker states for decades now with my memory starting in Vietman. You can list off all of the states we have bombed or invaded over the past 60 years: Vietnam, Cambodia, Loas, Syria, Pamana, Haiti, Ethiopia, Sudan, Lebanon, Somalia, Afganistan, Iraq, Granada……just a few that cross my mind. I don’t believe that we are ready as a country to modify our behavior. Want change? The current sclerotic system will not provide it. Think outside the box.