Donald Trump won’t take Greenland by force, Lord Mandelson says

Lord Mandelson said that US President Donald Trump “will not go out to Greenland and take it by force”.

Britain’s former ambassador to the US told the BBC that he admired Trump’s “candor” in political talks but said he was “not a fool” and that his advisers would remind him that taking Greenland “would mean a real danger” to US national interests.

There is growing interest in how the semi-autonomous Danish territory will be governed during Trump’s term, and Trump said on Saturday: The US needed to “own” Greenland to prevent Russia and China from doing soand he would achieve this “the easy way” or the “hard way”.

While Denmark and Greenland said that the region was not for sale, Denmark warned that military intervention would mean the end of the NATO military alliance.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will hold talks with Denmark on Greenland next week. AFP news agency reported that a Danish poll suggested that 38 percent of Danes think the US would invade Greenland under the Trump administration.

Speaking on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg program on Sunday, Lord Mandelson said: “He won’t do it [use military action to take Greenland]. I don’t know, but having observed him pretty closely, I’m doing the best I can.”

Sparsely populated, Greenland’s location between North America and the Arctic It is ideally located for missile early warning systems and ship monitoring. in the region.

Trump has repeatedly argued that Greenland is vital to U.S. national security, claiming without evidence that it is “covered everywhere with Russian and Chinese ships.” His interest in the region returned after last week’s commando raid on the Venezuelan capital Caracas. Kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and killed dozens of people.

Lord Mandelson, who served as ambassador for only a few months, also said: “We will all have to wake up to the fact that the Arctic must be secured against China and Russia. And if you ask me who will lead the effort to secure that security, we all know it will be the United States, don’t we?”

The UK, meanwhile, is working with NATO allies to improve security in the Arctic, a senior minister told BBC One’s Laura Kuenssberg program on Sunday.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said discussions about securing the region from Russia and China were part of NATO’s regular business rather than responding to a US military threat, and then said Britain agreed with Trump that the Arctic Circle was an increasingly contested part of the world.

“It’s really important that we do everything we can, together with all our NATO allies, to provide an effective deterrent against Putin in this part of the world,” he said.

But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the situation in Greenland was a “second order” issue compared to what was currently happening in Iran. As protesters resist government crackdown.

He said questions about sending troops to Greenland were “hypothetical” because “the United States did not invade Greenland.”

The United States already has significant influence over Greenland. According to the current agreements with Denmark, the United States has the authority to bring as many troops as it wants to the region.

But on Saturday, Trump told reporters in Washington that current deals are not good enough.

“I love the Chinese people. I love the Russian people,” Trump said. “But I don’t want them to be neighbors in Greenland, that’s not going to happen.

“Meanwhile, NATO needs to understand this.”

Earlier this week, Denmark’s NATO allies (major European countries and Canada) backed Denmark with statements confirming that “only Denmark and Greenland can decide on matters concerning their relationship.”

Lord Mandelson, one of the key architects of New Labour, has been in and out of British politics for four decades.

He has held various ministerial posts since Tony Blair’s election and was forced to resign twice before Labor came to power in 2010.