PresidentDonald Trumpsays he’s “postponing” a planned state visit to Denmark, days after the country’s prime minister called his desire to acquire the island of Greenlandan “absurd discussion.”
Trump, 73, made the announcementon Twitteron Tuesday, citing the prime minister’s lack of interest in “discussing the purchase of Greenland.”
A White House official also confirmed toCNNthat the Copenhagen, Denmark trip, which was scheduled for September, is being canceled.
A spokesperson for the Danish royal familytold the Associated Press that the cancelation was a “surprise.”
Last Sunday, Trump confirmed that he’d been thinking about howthe United States might acquire Greenland.
“A lot of things can be done. I mean, essentially, it’s a large real estate deal,” he told reporters while returning to Washington, D.C.,following his New Jersey vacation.
NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty
Then, on Monday,he shared a tongue-in-cheek memeimagining a gaudy, gold Trump tower on the island. “I promise not to do this to Greenland!” he wrote.
Trump’s interest in Greenland waswidely reported last week, citingsourcesin his orbit, and it was treated with a mixture ofconfusion, curiosity, and skepticismabout how serious he actually was. (He is not the first president to look into such a possibility, however.)
“It’s just something we talked about,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. “Denmark essentially owns it. We’re very good allies with Denmark. We protect Denmark like we protect large portions of the world. So the concept came up and I said, ‘Certainly, I’d be. Strategically, it’s interesting, and we’d be interested.’ But we’ll talk to them a little bit. It’s not No. 1 on the burner, I can tell you that.”
Greenland has its own government and semi-autonomy from the Kingdom of Denmark, of which it remains a part.
In a statement last week, according to Associated Press, the island’s government responded, saying: “Of course, Greenland is not for sale.”
“I strongly hope that this is not meant seriously,” Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen said, according to Reuters.
Greenland has reportedly interested Trump in part because of its stores of coal and uranium. The island is also geographically situated between the U.S. and Russia, and in the Arctic, where Chinahas set its sights, offering geopolitical advantages as well.
source: people.com
