London: US President Donald Trump wants to own Greenland. He has repeatedly said the United States must take control of the strategically located and mineral-rich island, which is a semiautonomous region that's part of NATO ally Denmark, the Associated Press reported.
Officials from Denmark, Greenland, and the United States met Thursday in Washington and will meet again next week to discuss a renewed push by the White House, which is considering a range of options, including using military force, to acquire the island.
Trump said on Friday he is going to do “something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.” If it's not done “the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way," he said without elaborating what that could entail.
In an interview on Thursday, he told The New York Times that he wants to own Greenland because “ownership gives you things and elements that you can't get from just signing a document.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO, and Greenlanders say they don't want to become part of the US.
This is a look at some of the ways the US could take control of Greenland and the potential challenges.
Trump and his officials have indicated they want to control Greenland to enhance American security and explore business and mining deals. But Imran Bayoumi, an associate director at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Centre for Strategy and Security, said the sudden focus on Greenland is also the result of decades of neglect by several US presidents towards Washington's position in the Arctic.
The current fixation is partly down to “the realisation we need to increase our presence in the Arctic, and we don't yet have the right strategy or vision to do so,” he said.
If the US took control of Greenland by force, it would plunge NATO into a crisis, possibly an existential one.
Trump said he needs control of the island to guarantee American security, citing the threat from Russian and Chinese ships in the region.