‘No interest in selling Greenland’: Denmark rebuffs Trump’s acquisition push again

A day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio doubled down on President Donald Trump’s desire to buy Greenland, Denmark on Friday once again rejected Trump’s proposal, asserting that the US cannot simply take over the territory.

“Some believe that if (the US) just owned the whole world, everything would be under control. But that’s not what the US needs,” Politico quoted Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen as saying on Friday, citing Danish public broadcaster TV 2.

“We have no interest in selling Greenland to the US, it will not happen, the Greenlanders are a people, and Greenland is a country,” he added.

Rubio had on Thursday said that buying Greenland would be vital to US interests.

“This is not a joke,” Rubio said on the The Megyn Kelly Show on SiriusXM, one of his first media appearances since being sworn in.

“This is not about acquiring land for the purpose of acquiring land. This is in our national interest and it needs to be solved,” he added.

Rasmussen shot back saying, “I would be more surprised if he said it was a joke.”

He added the US and Denmark should cooperate on Arctic security.

“We need to find a different form in which we jointly take on these tasks … If we can have a substantive discussion about it, then we can find a solution,” said Rasmussen.

During the interview, Rubio downplayed Trump’s previous remarks about not ruling out using military force against Denmark, a NATO ally, to acquire Greenland — but he didn’t outright dismiss the possibility.

“He is not going to begin what he views as a negotiation or a conversation by taking … leverage off the table, and that’s a tactic that’s used all the time in business,” Rubio said.

“It’s being applied to foreign policy and I think to great effect in the first term.”

Trump’s increasingly pointed comments about Greenland — calling the US acquisition of the island an “absolute necessity” and not ruling out military force or economic pressure — have triggered crisis talks in Copenhagen and other European capitals.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has been traveling between Berlin, Brussels, and Paris this week to garner support for Denmark’s stance.

She and Trump reportedly had a heated 45-minute phone call two weeks ago, during which the US president emphasized his serious intentions regarding Greenland, noting its strategic Arctic location and abundant mineral resources.

Most Greenlanders oppose the idea, with recent polling indicating that 85 percent of the territory’s population of approximately 60,000 do not wish to become American.

With inputs from agencies