NUUK, Greenland (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump has made an American takeover of Greenland a focus of his second term in the White House, calling it a national security priority while repeating false claims about the strategic Arctic island.
In recent comments, he has floated using military force as an option to take control of Greenland. He has said if the U.S. does not acquire the island, which is a self-governing territory of NATO ally Denmark, then it will fall into Chinese or Russian hands.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
TRUMP, discussing the security situation in the Arctic: “We need that because if you take a look outside of Greenland right now, there are Russian destroyers, there are Chinese destroyers and, bigger, there are Russian submarines all over the place. We’re not gonna have Russia or China occupy Greenland, and that’s what they’re going to do if we don’t.”
THE FACTS: Experts have repeatedly rebuffed Trump’s claims of Chinese and Russian military forces lurking off Greenland’s coastline. Experts say Russia instead operates in the Barents Sea, off the Scandinavian coast, and both China and Russia have a presence in the Bering Sea south of Alaska.
“That statement makes no sense in terms of facts,” said Andreas Østhagen, research director for Arctic and ocean politics at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo, Norway. “There are no Russian and Chinese ships all over the place around Greenland. Russia and/or China has no capacity to occupy Greenland or...
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