Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede strongly rejected the idea of putting the island for sale after President-elect Donald Trump suggested the US should take control over the territory.
"Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale," he said, the Ritzau news agency reported. "But we must continue to be open to cooperation and trade with the whole world, especially with our neighbors."
Trump earlier said Washington should take over the island nation as he said he would tap Ken Howery for US ambassador to Denmark.
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Greenland has rejected any idea of selling out to Washington after US President-elect Donald Trump said control over the Arctic island would be in his country’s strategic and national interest.
ReplyDeleteThe autonomous territory of Denmark is sparsely inhabited and mostly covered by snow and ice. Trump has raised the issue of buying the island in his first term at the White House.
“Greenland is ours,” the island’s prime minister Mute Egede said in a statement quoted by AFP on Monday. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”
Announcing the nomination of the new US ambassador to Denmark on Sunday, Trump said that “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for the US, “for purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world.”
Trump did not specifically mention an offer to buy Greenland and it was unclear whether his phrasing implied the willingness of his incoming government to seize the island by force from Denmark, a fellow NATO member.
In August 2019, one of Trump’s aides confirmed that the then-president wanted to “take a look at a potential Greenland purchase,” describing it as “a strategic place” with a lot of valuable minerals.