Published December 23, 2024 at 1:24 p.m.
Foreign Affairs. US President-elect Donald Trump has once again expressed interest in taking over Greenland, the world's largest island, which is currently a self-governing part of Denmark. This is reported by Axios.
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“For national security and freedom around the world, US ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” he writes on Truth Social.
The statement came in connection with his nomination of Paypal founder Ken Howery as US ambassador to Denmark.
Trump's interest in Greenland is not new. During his previous term in office in 2019, he proposed that the US buy the island, but was met with a sharp rejection from the Danish government. This led Trump to cancel a planned state visit to Denmark.
Behind the US interest lies, among other things, Greenland's strategic location in the Arctic, a region characterized by a race for natural resources. Greenland has large reserves of gold, silver, copper and uranium, and there are also believed to be significant oil deposits in the waters around the island.
Trump's statement on Greenland follows another controversial demand from the weekend, in which he urged Panamanian authorities to lower fees for American ships passing through the Panama Canal – or allow the US to regain control of the canal.