The U.S. president has frequently mused about taking over the semiautonomous Danish territory — which is rich with minerals and well situated in the Arctic to bolster U.S. national security — but experts and allies alike are on heightened alert after Trump made good on his warning that Maduro's days were numbered.
Trump and the administration are considering "a range of options" in order to acquire Greenland, including "utilizing the U.S. Military," said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The president previously said in March that he never takes "military force off the table" regarding Greenland."
Europe is scrambling to avoid a takeover Denmark says would effectively end the NATO security arrangement that has prevailed for 70 years.
Otto Svendsen, an associate fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told The Hill that the fundamental challenge right now is, "What do you do when a member of the herd all of a sudden becomes a wolf?"
Responding to questions about Venezuela and which countries could face a similar fate, Trump told reporters Sunday that Greenland is "so strategic right now."
"We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it," the president said.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller doubled down on those remarks in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Monday.
"The United States should have Greenland as part of the United States. There's no need to even think or talk about this in the context that you're asking, of a military operation," Miller told Tapper, who asked repeatedly if Miller would rule out military action against Greenland.
"Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland," Miller added.
European leaders — including the prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland — immediately pushed back on Trump's remarks and made clear they viewed them as a threat.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen cautioned that any attack against Greenland, which enjoys NATO protection as a territory of Denmark, would jeopardize the future of the defense alliance.
Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen touted the long-standing alliance between the two countries and said the "recent rhetoric from the US is completely unacceptable."
Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt on Tuesday announced that the Arctic island and Denmark requested a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio "to discuss the significant statements made by the United States about Greenland."
Read the full report at thehill.com.
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