Donald Trump channeled one of his Miss Universe contestants with his reason for wanting to claim Greenland for the United States. It is all about “world peace.”
The president insisted it wasn’t just America’s security he was worried about in seeking to take control of the Arctic island from Denmark.
With Vice President JD Vance and wife Usha on a flying visit to Greenland on Friday to emphasize U.S. interest, Trump spoke from the Oval Office to explain why he believed the land grab was important.
“If you look at Greenland right now, if you look at the waterways, you have Chinese and Russian ships all over the place,” he said.
“We’re not relying on Denmark or anybody else to take care of that situation. And we’re not talking about peace for the United States. We’re talking about world peace. We’re talking about international security,” he insisted.
“We have to be protective of our country, and more importantly, right now, it’s really protection, not only of our country, but of the world.”
The president owned the Miss Universe beauty pageant franchise from 1996 until 2015, when he bought out NBC’s share in the business to own it outright.
Trump also appeared to acknowledge the effects of global warming as he made his case. He has consistently taken a stance against climate change as he pushes a fossil fuels agenda. For the first time in a decade, the issue has been removed from the list of national security threats facing the United States.
The president explained that the security threat posed by Russia and China in the Arctic was much greater now because of changes to the icepack caused by “nature.”
He said that 100 years ago, Greenland wasn’t a factor, but modern weaponry and the ice melt had made it more important to America’s security.
“If you notice also some of those, you could call them roadways. Okay, they’re water roadways, but some of those areas are opening up. Ice breakers out there, they’re opening them, and by just nature, they’re opening up, and they’re headed right into China, right into Russia, and we have no choice,” he added.
Since beginning his second term in office, Trump has taken a series of measures that have damaged the government’s ability to combat climate change.
He has reportedly frozen funds for clean energy projects, fired federal workers involved in environmental projects and dismantled programs aimed at fighting global warming.
Hours after being sworn into office, Trump said: “We’re going to drill, baby, drill and do all of the things that we wanted to.”
