President Donald Trump is tightening his grip on Greenland, as Vice President JD Vance prepares for a last-minute, uninvited visit later this week.
America has “to let them know that we need Greenland for international safety and security. We need it. We have to have it,” Trump said in an interview with radio host Vince Coglianese on Wednesday. “It’s [an] island from a defensive posture and even offensive posture is something we need. … When you look at the ships going up their shore by the hundreds, it’s a busy place.”
Trump has floated the idea of acquiring Greenland since his first term but has fixated on it in his second administration. If the United States lays claim over the autonomous Danish territory, it will gain control of key shipping annexes and untapped rare earth minerals and energy resources that could change the fabric of global trade.
The president told Coglianese he was unsure if Greenlanders were ready to be citizens of the United States, “but I think we have to do it and convince them, and we have to have the land because it’s not possible to properly defend a large section of this Earth — not just the U.S. — without it. So we have to have it, and I think we will have it.”
