President Trump again threatened on Friday to forcibly annex Greenland, saying that he was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”
In a White House event discussing his plans to have American companies exploit Venezuela’s vast oil reserves under the threat of a military blockade, Mr. Trump advanced an imperialist vision of American foreign policy, where the U.S. must dominate strategically important neighboring countries because of the perceived possibility that rival powers might do so first.
“If we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland,” Mr. Trump said, falsely suggesting that Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, was surrounded by Chinese and Russian warships. Russia and China are active in the Arctic Circle, but Greenland is not ringed by their ships, and the United States has a military base on Greenland.
Mr. Trump delivered an ominous warning to Danish and Greenlandic officials, who have consistently opposed the president’s plans to take the island: “I would like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way we’re going to do it the hard way.”
The United States’ taking Greenland by force would rip apart the central agreement that underpins the NATO military alliance, of which Denmark and the United States are both founding members. Under that treaty, an attack on any member is treated as an attack on all members.
But Mr. Trump dismissed that central principle of the alliance as he explained why he wanted to annex Greenland, suggesting that he would defend the island only if the United States were to govern the territory directly.
“When we own it, we defend it,” Mr. Trump said. “You don’t defend leases the same way. You have to own it.”
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