Greenland PM reiterates ‘we are not for sale’ after Trump suggests US ownership | Donald Trump

Greenland’s elected chief mentioned the large Arctic island isn’t on the market after Donald Trump as soon as once more raised the difficulty of “possession and management” of the huge territory that has been a part of Denmark for greater than 600 years.

“Greenland is ours. We aren’t on the market and can by no means be on the market. We should not lose our lengthy wrestle for freedom,” Greenland’s prime minister, Múte Egede, mentioned in a written remark.

The US president-elect on Sunday introduced that he had picked Ken Howery, a former envoy to Sweden, as his ambassador to Copenhagen, and commented on the standing of Greenland, a semi-autonomous a part of Denmark.

“For functions of Nationwide Safety and Freedom all through the World, the US of America feels that the possession and management of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote on Reality Social.

Trump, who takes workplace on 20 January, didn’t elaborate on the assertion.

For a lot of observers Trump’s remark triggered a way of deja vu. Throughout his first time period Trump urged in 2019 that the US can buy Greenland – which is residence to the strategically necessary Pituffik US house base.

That concept was roundly rejected by Denmark in addition to by the island’s personal authorities earlier than any formal discussions may happen. It additionally prompted widespread ridicule and have become emblematic of the chaos that Trump dropped at conventional world diplomacy – one thing now anticipated to occur once more as soon as Trump returns to the White Home subsequent month.

The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, in 2019 labelled Trump’s first supply as “absurd”, main the then US president to explain her as “nasty” and to cancel a go to to the Danish capital of Copenhagen.

Individually on Sunday, Trump additionally threatened to reassert US management over the Panama Canal, accusing Panama of charging extreme charges to make use of the Central American passage and drawing a pointy rebuke from Panamanian president, José Raúl Mulino.

Reuters contributed reporting