GOP Senator: Trump’s Greenland Threats Could Boomerang

By Staff, Agencies

Republican Senator Rand Paul warned that US President Donald Trump’s threats to seize Greenland by force could sabotage any hope for a diplomatic solution.

Trump has argued that the US should control Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory, citing security concerns and the need to counter Russia and China, and has not ruled out using force—alarming European NATO members who have rallied behind Denmark.”

Paul warned that Trump’s threats to seize Greenland could alienate its population and hurt US diplomacy. "But let’s say you wanted to buy Greenland… you don’t get there by angering and denigrating the people who live there," he said, adding it "doesn’t make them very willing to sell [to] us."

Paul added that threatening force would likely have the opposite effect. “So really, if your goal is somehow, we’re going to rattle the saber and then they’re going to sell it to us, I think it’s having the opposite effect,” he said.

On Sunday, Trump reiterated his intention to take control of Greenland "one way or another,’ adding aboard Air Force One that ‘I’d love to make a deal – it’s easier – but we’re going to have it."

Last week, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that a US attack on a fellow NATO member would amount to the end of the bloc. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the UK have said Greenland’s future should be decided by Denmark and the island’s population alone.