Trump grows more confident about the annexation of Greenland

President Trump said Thursday the annexing of Greenland could happen and that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte could play a role.

“I think it’ll happen,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office while meeting with Mr. Rutte. “And I’m just thinking, I didn’t give it much thought before, but I’m sitting with a man that could be very instrumental.”

Speaking to Mr. Rutte, he said the U.S. needs Greenland “for international security,” an argument he has made before.

The NATO leader agreed that Greenland and the Arctic Circle are strategically important because of the growing threat from China and Russia in the region.

He said it’s important to work together to “ensure that that region, that part of the world, stays safe.”

However, he said he doesn’t want “to drag NATO in that.”

Greenland’s newly elected prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, nixed talk of his country getting annexed.

“We don’t want to be Americans,” he said on Britain’s Sky News. “We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future. And we want to build our own country by ourselves.”

In the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said U.S. control of Greenland was a necessity.

“We really need it for national security,” he said. “I think that’s why NATO might have to get involved in a way because we really need Greenland for national security.”

He said maybe “more and more soldiers” will start heading to Greenland. The U.S. military currently has Pituffik Space Base in Greenland.