US President Donald Trump ramped up his rhetoric over Greenland on Friday, saying he was willing to secure the territory “the hard way” if authorities were unwilling to cut a deal for the US to take over the island.
“I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way,” Trump told reporters Friday at the White House.
While Trump has long mused about making Greenland a part of the US, claiming the Danish territory as a national security imperative, his focus on the island has intensified in recent days following an audacious US raid to capture the leader of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro.
That action has sparked new fears among allies over Trump’s willingness to deploy the US military to achieve his foreign policy goals.
Asked if he was considering making a financial offer to the people of the island to entice them to join the US, Trump said he was “not talking about money for Greenland yet”.
“I might talk about that, but right now, we are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,” he said. Trump said if the US did not act on the Danish territory, top geopolitical rivals Russia and China would do so.
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