President Donald Trump and his team are considering “a range of options” in order to acquire Greenland — including “utilizing the U.S. Military,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNBC on Tuesday.
The statement is an escalation of the Trump administration’s already aggressive rhetoric about Greenland, which the president has long sought to make a part of the United States.
Trump said Sunday that the U.S. needs Greenland for national security purposes, pointing to Russian and Chinese activities in the region near the Arctic island.
Greenland is a territory of Denmark, which, like the U.S., is a member of international military alliance the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The leaders of Denmark and other European NATO states on Tuesday morning issued a joint statement pushing back on Trump’s increasingly vocal desire to obtain Greenland.
