“I think we know, based on Donald Trump’s first term, that the intensity of his rhetoric and the sometimes unpredictability of what he says can be destabilizing,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
British Foreign Minister David Lammy refused this Thursday to condemn statements by the President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, about annexing the Panama Canal and Greenland, by force if necessary.
“It’s not my place to condemn our closest ally. My job is to interpret what’s behind this, and there are very serious questions of national economic security. It’s on this basis that Donald Trump won his election,” he said in a .
“I think we know from Donald Trump’s first term that the intensity of his rhetoric and the unpredictability sometimes of what he says can be destabilizing. That’s what he did with NATO. But in fact, in practice, he sent more troops to Europe during his administration and sent the first Javelins [armas antitanque] and weapons to Ukraine during your government.”
The head of British diplomacy said he suspected that, in relation to Greenland, “what he is targeting is his concerns about Russia and China in the Arctic, his concerns about national economic security.”
“He recognises, I’m sure, that at the end of the day Greenland is currently an autonomous region of Denmark. There is a debate in Greenland about its own self-determination. But behind that I think are his concerns about the Arctic.”
Lammy admitted that the US has a particular interest because it has troops and a military base in Greenland, but he does not believe in a military invasion of Danish territory.
“Let’s be serious… That’s not going to happen because no NATO ally has gone to war since the birth of NATO.”
“The idea expressed about Greenland will not happen”
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, rejected on Wednesday the idea of annexing Greenland proposed by the President-elect, ensuring that this will not happen.
“The idea expressed about Greenland is obviously not a good idea, but perhaps more importantly, it’s not going to happen,” Blinken said at a news conference in Paris.
Following the private visit of his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to Greenland on Tuesday, the President-elect did not exclude, in a press conference on the same day, a hypothetical resort to military force or the imposition of tariffs on Denmark to take control of the island.
This Arctic island of two million square kilometers (80% of which is covered in ice) has a population of just 56,000 inhabitants.
Since 2009, Greenland has had a new statute recognizing the right to self-determination.
Although most parties and the population support separation from Denmark, half of the island’s budget depends on annual aid from Copenhagen and attempts to obtain revenue from its mineral and oil wealth have so far failed due to the difficulties and high cost of extraction.
The US maintains a military base in northern Greenland under a broad defense agreement signed in 1951 between Copenhagen and Washington.
The German and French governments have publicly criticized Donald Trump’s expansion plans.
