President Donald Trump on Wednesday reupped his demand that Denmark hand Greenland over to him, falsely claimed that NATO had never done anything for the United States and announced that people would “be prosecuted” for stealing the 2020 election from him — all to a European audience at an economic policy conference.
Attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, though, were likely relieved by a small snippet of the 72-minute speech: “People thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force,” Trump said of taking Greenland, just a few days after suggesting that he might.
Trump, who has been obsessed with acquiring Greenland since his first term, told the conference of world leaders and wealthy business executives that the United States should have just kept the Arctic island at the end of World War II.
“Then after the war — which we won, we won it big. Without us right now, you’d all be speaking German and a little Japanese, perhaps,” he said. “After the war, we gave Greenland back to Denmark. How stupid were we to do that? But we did it. But we gave it back. But how ungrateful are they now?”
In tone and content, much of Trump’s 72-minute speech sounded like one of his “policy” or rally speeches. He attacked predecessor Joe Biden. He lied about inflation having been defeated. He used racist attacks against Somali immigrants.
