Trump’s Greenland ‘Deal’ Appears To Exist Only In His Head | EUROtoday

WASHINGTON – Despite “psychologically” needing to accumulate Greenland, President Donald Trump Thursday headed again to the United States with simply “the framework” of an settlement that seems to exist solely in his personal thoughts.

Weeks of antagonizing each Denmark and all of NATO with threats of tariffs and even warfare, in Trump’s telling, gained the United States key concessions within the Danish territory following a one-on-one assembly with the alliance’s secretary common, Mark Rutte, on the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“We’re getting everything we wanted ― total security, total access to everything,” Trump bragged to Fox Business Thursday morning, acknowledging that the small print are nonetheless being labored out. “Essentially, it’s total access. There’s no end. There’s no time limit.”

Yet Trump may barely start his victory lap for his claimed achievement earlier than it started falling aside. Rutte ― who however his technique of regularly praising Trump to keep away from conflicts felt the necessity Wednesday to publicly appropriate Trump’s false declare about NATO’s willingness to guard the United States if wanted — stated Greenland by no means even got here up in his dialogue with Trump.

Then, after the White House leaked a declare that the settlement would give the U.S. possession of “small pockets of land” on Greenland for army functions, the Danish prime minister introduced that that was not true.

“We can negotiate all politically: security, investment, economy,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen stated in an announcement Thursday. “But we can’t negotiate our sovereignty.”

She repeated that message chatting with reporters in Davos: “We have said from the very beginning that a discussion about our status as a sovereign state, it cannot be discussed.”

Added Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s prime minister: “We are ready to negotiate a better partnership and so on, but sovereignty is a red line.”

The White House however insisted that Trump had gained a significant victory. “If this deal goes through, and President Trump is very hopeful it will, the United States will be achieving all of its strategic goals with respect to Greenland, at very little cost, forever. President Trump is proving once again he’s the ‘Dealmaker in Chief.’ As details are finalized by all parties involved, they will be released accordingly,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly stated.

Neither Trump nor the White House mentions {that a} 1951 treaty with Denmark already provides the United States entry to the semi-autonomous area for army bases. Indeed, the U.S. had greater than a dozen there throughout the Cold War years and nonetheless has one there at the moment.

The one factor Trump did handle together with his weekslong marketing campaign to wrest Greenland away from a founding NATO member was to alienate conventional allies in Western Europe even additional. “I think it’s sad and totally absurd that we have an American president who’s blackmailing the rest of us trying to get a bit of land, a piece of land, or buy it through threats,” Swedish Finance Minister Elisabeth Evantesson instructed reporters in Davos this week. “We will never back down.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the meantime, complained to world leaders and enterprise executives assembled in Davos that Trump’s want to personal Greenland had distracted from Russia’s current warfare of territorial conquest towards his nation — the biggest land warfare in Europe since World War II.

“Everyone turned attention to Greenland, and it’s clear most leaders simply are not sure what to do about it. And it seems like everyone is just waiting for America to cool down on this topic, hoping it will pass away. But what if it will not?” he stated in remarks shortly after assembly with Trump.

He added that if the United States and Europe are actually anxious about Russian ships crusing round Greenland, they need to search assist from Ukraine, which has confirmed its capability at sinking Russian vessels within the Black Sea.

“We have the expertise and weapons to ensure not one of those ships remains. They can sink near Greenland, just as they do near Crimea. No problem,” he stated. “We will solve this problem with the Russian ships.”