WASHINGTON — President Trump threatened Friday to use tariffs to win global assent to the US acquiring Greenland — after Denmark insisted again this week that it won’t sell the world’s largest island to the United States.
“I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security. So I may do that,” Trump said at the White House.
Trump, who has styled himself the “tariff king,” made the remark while touting his use of threatened import levies to secure his “most favored nation” drug price equalization with other countries.
The president didn’t specify what countries would be hit with the tariffs or what legal authority he would use to dictate the duties.
Trump’s threat is his firmest idea yet to pressure a sale of Greenland — coming after the White House refused to rule out military action to seize the land from a fellow NATO ally.
French President Emmanuel Macron this week sent troops to Greenland as part of “Operation Arctic Endurance” to underscore support for Danish ownership.
Germany, France, Sweden and Norway also announced plans to send troops to Greenland, where the US already has a major military base.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and semi-autonomous Greenland met with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio Wednesday in Washington.
“We didn’t manage to change the American position. It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering Greenland,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Rasmussen said after the roughly 80-minute discussion.
Rubio recently told members of Congress that Trump would like to buy the island, and US officials reportedly are also considering stipends of up to $100,000 per person to sway Greenland’s 57,000 residents.
Trump said Jan. 9 that he will acquire Greenland “whether they like it or not” because “if we don’t do it, China or Russia will.”
The president added that the land transfer would happen “the easy way” or “the hard way.”
“Countries have to have ownership. And you defend ownership, you don’t defend leases, and we’ll have to defend Greenland,” he said.
Greenland would be the largest territorial acquisition in US history — exceeding the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France and the 1867 Alaska Purchase from Russia.
Danish and Greenlandic officials have bluntly rejected Trump’s interest.
If Greenland is forced to choose, “we choose Denmark,” the island’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said Tuesday during a visit to Copenhagen.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen slammed Trump’s “completely unacceptable pressure,” but admitted “there is much to suggest that the hardest part is still ahead of us.”
