(The Hill) – President-elect Trump said Sunday evening on social media that the U.S. owning Greenland “is an absolute necessity,” in a statement announcing Ken Howery as his nominee to serve as ambassador to Denmark.
Howery, a tech investor who co-founded PayPal, was ambassador to Sweden in the previous Trump administration.
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump said in the Truth Social post.
On Monday, Greenland's prime minister said the island isn't up for purchase.
"Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom,” Múte Egede said in a statement, according to reports from BBC and The Guardian.
In late 2019, Trump said that buying Greenland, which is owned by Denmark, was “strategically” interesting, triggering an angry response from Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
“Denmark essentially owns it. We’re very good allies with Denmark. We protect Denmark like we protect large portions of the world,” Trump said at the time.
“Strategically, it’s interesting, and we’d be interested, but we’ll talk to them a little bit. It’s not number one on the burner,” he added.
Frederiksen called the idea "absurd," telling reporters at the time, “Greenland is not Danish. Greenland is Greenlandic. I persistently hope that this is not something that is seriously meant."
According to a book from The New York Times’s Peter Baker and The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser, the president-elect suggested to aides of his during his first term that the U.S. could trade Puerto Rico for Greenland.
Trump also made waves abroad over the weekend with his posts and comments about the Panama Canal.
On Saturday, Trump expressed frustration with fees charged for the use of the Panama Canal via Truth Social, asserting that he would stipulate that oversight of the canal return to the U.S. when he comes back into the White House if that is not changed.
“The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous, especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to Panama by the U.S.,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This complete ‘rip-off’ of our Country will immediately stop.”
The following day, at an event for conservative group Turning Point USA, Trump said the canal “was given to Panama and to the people of Panama, but it has provisions, you gotta treat us fairly and they haven’t treated us fairly,”
“If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America in full, quickly and without question,” he added.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino fired back at Trump in a video statement Sunday.
“As president, I want to express clearly that every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zone belongs to Panama, and will continue to do so,” Mulino said. “The sovereignty and independence of our country are not negotiable.”
Updated at 2:27 p.m. EST
