Trump has an option to get Greenland, but a little realistic: Expert

Trump’s government remained firm in acquiring Greenland, although the island leaders refused to surrender as Vice President JD Vance and the second woman Usha Vance traveled to the country on Friday.

“We need Greenland for national security and international security. So, we think, we will go as far as we have to go,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday.

Vance has broken out of Greenland’s “extraordinary natural resources” in a speech calling for the acquisition of the area of ​​his wealth in gold, copper, and rare material.

Trump’s ambition is not made up, according to an international relations expert who told ABC News that there are several ways where the US can realistically obtain an autonomous Danish region.

However, international policies, law, and economic and political partnerships for decades made Trump’s desire very impossible, according to Phillip Lipscy, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto.

“This kind of rhetoric has not been part of the US foreign policy making since World War II,” he told ABC News. “If the United States moves forward with this, this will be a changer to the game.”

Lipscy noted that when acquiring Greenland would increase US security in the Arctic circle, such a step was not needed because of the strong military and naval presence of NATO countries.

The attachment is not new in US history, returning to the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, when the US earned most of what was now the central part of the country was obtained in an agreement with France.

The last time the US was given land that became the region when he obtained three groups of Pacific Samudra Island as part of the Post-World War II agreement with the United Nations in 1947, known as the Pacific Islands trust area.

The agreement took years to negotiate and agreement from several countries that compiled the post-war-war geopolitical landscape.

Only one of the island groups, the Marianas Islands, remains the US territory.

Lipscy said an agreement between sovereign countries had been reduced for decades with agreements such as limited military partnerships, trade agreements and other agreements, which needed far less time and helped maintain the sovereignty of countries.

Trump and the US must negotiate with the Danish government for Greenland’s sales or annexation if he takes over the land without violating international law or using the military to take the country by force.

Greenland politics has made such negotiations difficult, according to Lipscy.

Greenland is a Danish region that is sovereign with its own elected government, with the Danish parliament in dealing with international issues.

There has been a movement on an independent island from Denmark which will be a key factor in the US acquisition plan in the future, according to Lipscy.

“Of course, there may be diplomatic solutions that begin with an independent Greenland … but it is difficult to see the situation,” he said.

In the earlier election this month, pro-independence parties won the most seats in parliament but no one wanted to be part of the AS Greenland now formed a coalition government after the election.

The Greenland government and its residents strongly protested Trump since he began to discuss it in December. He drifted his previous idea in his first term of office in 2019 but did not pursue him.

“Greenland belongs to Greenland people. We are not Americans, we are not Denmark because we are Greenland citizens. This is what Americans and their leaders need to be understood. We cannot be bought and we cannot be ignored,” said Prime Minister Mute Bourup Egede at a Facebook post earlier this month.

Egede also called on Friday’s visit by Vances and other US officials, including national security adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, part of “American pressure that was very aggressive of the Greenland community” and called for the international community to reprimand him.

The Danish government has also pushed back Trump’s call to acquire Greenland and has encouraged its residents to speak against it.

“They know very well that Greenland is not sold. They know very well that Greenland does not want to be part of the United States,” Denmark Mette Frederiksen said in a Wednesday statement.

“The attention is extraordinary and the pressure is great. But at this time you show what cloth you made. You have not allowed yourself to be dried. You have stood for whom you are – and you have shown what you are fighting for. This has my deepest respect,” he added.

Frederiksen said that other European countries were also on the side of Denmark in this back and forth with Trump, had hampered the relationship between the US and its allies since Trump returned the office.

Lipscy said that such purchases will take a long time and will likely beyond Trump’s term of office, especially if Greenland and Denmark’s leadership and his people continue to reject Trump’s call.

If Trump continues to ignore the desires of Greenland and Denmark, it will also trouble the relationships and affect the Economic, National and Political Security Alliances that have existed since the end of World War II, said Lipscy.

“That will indicate the US can no longer be trusted as a reliable partner and holds international norms,” ​​he said. “No one wants to do the type of agreement, partnership, or any negotiation.”

Trump has refused to put aside military actions to take over Greenland, but Lipscy said that full military acquisitions would not be in the field of domestic and international politics and, most importantly, among the Americans.

A poll released by the Wall Street Journal a few days before Trump returned to the White House found that 68% of Americans opposed the idea.

“The idea of ​​territorial expansion will come especially from the President himself and there is no broad agreement about acquiring the public or Republican parties,” Lipscy said.

He predicted that while Trump might “clash the table” more to make his purpose into reality, it would not move the needle outside his base because the general public knew that such steps would be expensive and in the end did not help national security.

“I think even if the ultimate goal of the US government is to secure a relationship that is closer to Greenland, the administrative way with the policy making is very counterproductive and it is impossible to get the results they are looking for,” he said.