The president said the alliance would be ‘far more formidable’ with Greenland in the hands of the United States.
President Donald Trump said on Jan. 14 that NATO would be a stronger and more credible deterrent if Greenland were in the hands of the United States, renewing his long-running push for control of the Danish-controlled territory that has unsettled European allies and sparked blunt objections across the NATO alliance.
“The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security. It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building. NATO should be leading the way for us to get it,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
If the United States does not control Greenland, then Russia or China will, Trump warned, adding that without U.S. support, NATO would be an ineffective force or deterrent.
“NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES,“ Trump said. ”Anything less than that is unacceptable.”
Greenland’s strategic location has long been understood to be important from a U.S. security perspective.
The Atlantic Council recently noted that early-warning and missile-tracking radar systems stationed in Greenland “feed directly into US homeland defense,” while the island’s geography also makes it increasingly important for satellite command and control, space tracking, and secure communications as rivals develop counter-space and cyber capabilities.
The United States already has a long-standing military foothold on Greenland through Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule Air Base. The Arctic installation has hosted U.S. forces since World War II and plays a key role in U.S. and NATO security architecture in the region.
However, Trump has said that only U.S. control of Greenland can allow it to be adequately secured and that anything short of full U.S. ownership is inadequate to meet mounting threats from Russia and China.
Greenland is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, and both Denmark and the United States are NATO members. The issue has become a growing diplomatic irritant for Denmark, which has said there is no strategic need for U.S. ownership of Greenland because the island already falls under NATO’s collective defense umbrella.
By Tom Ozimek
