President Donald Trump might have moved closer to achieving his goal of acquiring Greenland after two political parties that favor independence from Denmark won in the country’s parliamentary elections this week.
The country’s center-right Demokraatit Party, which favors a gradual independence from Greenland, won 29.9% of the vote, meaning it will have to form a coalition with other parties to form a government.
The top opposition party, Naleraq, which has a positive view of Trump and favors rapid independence from Greenland, came in second place with 24.5% of the vote, according to CNN.
Inuit Ataqatigiit, the leftist incumbent ruling party, came in third with 21.4% of the vote, while another left-wing party, Siumut, came in fourth with 14.7%, the report said.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Demokraatit’s leader, said people in his country wanted “change,” but that does not mean they want “want independence tomorrow” and instead want to wait that there is a “good foundation” set before the island becomes fully independent from Greenland.
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Acquiring Greenland has been a top foreign policy objective for Trump as he seeks to expand the U.S. for economic and national security reasons.
During his address to Congress last week, he said, “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
Greenland is located in the Arctic Circle, which is a strategic location for missile defense systems, as incoming ballistic missiles from adversaries like Russia would travel through the region to hit the U.S.
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The region is also becoming critical for shipping lanes as some of the ice melts, making the waters more navigable.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in January that communist China was trying to stage operations in Greenland to take control of shipping lanes the same way that it has in the Panama Canal.
Rubio said that they are installing facilities that give them access to the Arctic under the cover of a Chinese company, but that, in reality, “serve a dual purpose, that in a moment of conflict, they could send naval vessels to that facility and operate from there.”
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“And that is completely unacceptable to the security of the world and the national security of the United States,” he said.
“So the question becomes, if the Chinese begin to threaten Greenland, do we really trust that that is not a place where those deals are going to be made? Do we really trust that that is not a place where they would not intervene, maybe by force?”
Rubio noted that Denmark is unable to stop China because they are too weak and already relies on the U.S. to do so.
“If the United States is on the hook to provide, as we are now, we have a defense agreement with them to protect Greenland if it becomes under assault,” he said. “If we’re already on the hook for having to do that, then what we might as well have more control over what happens there. And so I know it’s a delicate topic for Denmark, but it’s, again, a national interest item for the United States.”
