Oklahoma’s Republican Senator James Lankford dismissed President-elect Donald Trump’s ambition to seize Greenland using military means during a Sunday Meet the Press interview.
“The United States is not going to invade another nation,” Lankford stated on the NBC program. “That’s not representative of our values.”
Trump has eyed the resource-rich area of NATO ally Denmark for several years, tracing back to his initial term as president.
However, in the past few weeks, he amplified that geopolitical wish through a series of bold social media messages, drawing criticism from officials in Greenland and Denmark.
In a press conference last week, Trump made no promises similar to those Lankford offered.
When a reporter inquired if he would discard the idea of employing military or economic pressure to take possession of Greenland or the Panama Canal, Trump replied: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those, but I can say this, we need them for economic stability.”
Lankford, who was prompted by Meet the Press host Kristen Welker to react to Trump’s comments, attributed them to the president-elect’s knack for dramatic expression.
“The President tends to speak very boldly on many issues,” he noted. “We’ve observed this through his negotiation style, whether it pertains to real estate or his service as an effective president just four years prior. He makes a strong declaration. He gets everyone around the table. You engage in discussions.”
Along with Greenland, Trump did not dismiss the thought of utilizing military force to gain control of the Panama Canal, which is under Panamanian ownership.
He has also pondered annexing Canada—repeatedly mocking the nation’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, by referring to him as “governor”—but stated at the press conference that he would confine any actions to erase the “artificial boundary” between Canada and the U.S. to “economic pressure.”
Trump’s statements about potentially interfering with international borders have raised alarms in foreign capitals.
Jean-Noël Barrot, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, cautioned the president-elect to honor the European Union’s “sovereign borders.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz remarked that Trump displayed “a certain ignorance” regarding “the sanctity of borders,” which Scholz emphasized as a vital Western principle.
Both France and Germany are EU members alongside Denmark.
Múte Edege, the Prime Minister of Greenland, stated on Friday that he is open to meeting with Trump, but insisted the president-elect should acknowledge the island territory’s desires for independence.
“Greenland is for the Greenlandic people,” he said during a news conference alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Copenhagen. “We do not wish to be Danish, nor do we want to be American; we want to be Greenlandic.”
Republican Lankford maintained that Trump has “been quite explicit. He is the president who has kept American forces from engaging in wars. He does not intend to initiate conflict.”
When questioned about whether he would support Trump’s suggestion to impose tariffs on Denmark as a show of economic pressure, Lankford responded: “He’s actually floated tariffs on nearly everyone.”
