Trump weighs using U.S. military to acquire Greenland: White House

President Donald Trump and his team are considering “a number of options” to seize Greenland, including “using the U.S. Military,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNBC on Tuesday.

The statement represents an escalation of the Trump administration’s already aggressive rhetoric regarding Greenland, which the president has long tried to make part of the United States.

Trump said on Sunday that the United States needs Greenland for national security purposes, pointing to Russia and China’s activities in the region near the Arctic island.

Greenland is a territory of Denmark, which, like the United States, is a member of the international military alliance (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

Leaders of Denmark and other European NATO states issued a joint statement Tuesday morning, pushing back on Trump’s growing desire to seize Greenland.

Leavitt’s new comment about Greenland came after this joint statement.

“President Trump has made the well-known case that acquiring Greenland is a U.S. national security priority and that deterring our adversaries in the Arctic region is vital,” Leavitt said.

“The President and his team are discussing a number of options to achieve this important foreign policy goal, and of course using the U.S. Military is always an option available to the Commander in Chief,” he said.

Trump has often talked about including Greenland and Canada, as well as the Panama Canal, in the United States. The controversial comments sparked international backlash, but Dismissed by some as not serious and is unlikely to happen in US foreign policy.

The president’s renewed discussion of Greenland has raised more serious concerns in recent days, after the U.S. military entered Venezuela and successfully captured the country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores.

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