Greenland rebuffs Trump, says country is ‘not for sale’
globalnews.caFirst it was Canada, then the Panama Canal. Now, Donald Trump again wants Greenland.
The president-elect is renewing unsuccessful calls he made during his first term for the U.S. to buy Greenland from Denmark, adding to the list of allied countries with which he’s picking fights even before taking office on Jan. 20.
In a Sunday announcement naming his ambassador to Denmark, Trump wrote that, “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
Trump again having designs on Greenland comes after the president-elect suggested over the weekend that the U.S. could retake control of the Panama Canal if something isn’t done to ease rising shipping costs required for using the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
He’s also been suggesting that Canada become the 51st U.S. state and referred to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “governor” of the “Great State of Canada.”
Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, said Trump tweaking friendly countries harkens back to an aggressive style he used during his days in business.
“You ask something unreasonable and it’s more likely you can get something less unreasonable,” said Farnsworth, who is also author of the book “Presidential Communication and Character.”
Greenland, the world’s largest island, sits between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It is 80% covered by an ice sheet and is home to a large U.S. military base. It gained home rule from Denmark in 1979 and its head of government, Múte Bourup Egede, suggested that Trump’s latest calls for U.S. control would be as
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