President Donald Trump reiterated his desire to acquire Greenland during his special address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, arguing the territory is vital for U.S. national security and vowing to build a Golden Dome missile defense shield on it.
“All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland,” he said. “What I’m asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located, that can play a vital role in world peace and world protection. It’s a very small ask compared to what we have given them for many, many decades. But the problem with NATO is that we’ll be there for them 100%, but I’m not sure that they’d be there for us if we gave them the call.”
Trump’s long, rambling speech before world leaders and the global business elite hit on familiar gripes, like windmills and the “crooked” news media, and featured a flurry of boasts. But the most anticipated part of it revolved around Greenland given Trump’s stated ambitions for the U.S. to take over the semiautonomous Danish territory. (Trump also mentioned “Iceland” several times when he presumably meant Greenland.)
“All we want from Denmark for national and international security and to keep our very energetic and dangerous potential enemies at bay is this land on which we’re going to build the greatest Golden Dome ever built. We’re building a Golden Dome that’s going to, just by its very nature, going to be defending Canada,” Trump added.
“Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way, they should be grateful also, but they’re not. I watched your Prime Minister yesterday, he wasn’t so grateful. They should be grateful to U.S., Canada. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark [Carney], the next time you make your statements.”
Trump’s reference to Carney follows the Canadian prime minister’s stirring speech one day earlier, in which he spoke of a global “rupture,” in which “the rules-based order is fading,” and “the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.” Carney called for “the middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”
In Wednesday’s speech, Trump said he had “tremendous respect for both the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark,” but “every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend their own territory.” He suggested the U.S. is the only nation that can secure Greenland.
“We’re a great power, much greater than people even understand. I think they found that out two weeks ago in Venezuela. We saw this in World War II, when Denmark fell to Germany after just six hours of fighting and was totally unable to defend either itself or Greenland,” he said. “So the United States was then compelled. We did it. We felt an obligation to do it, to send our own forces to hold the Greenland territory and hold it. We did at great cost and expense. They didn’t have a chance of getting on it, and they tried.”
“So they have a choice: You can say yes and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no and we will remember,” Trump said.
Elsewhere in his 80-minute speech, the president falsely claimed the 2020 election, which he lost decisively to Joe Biden, was “rigged” and promised prosecutions to come.
“It was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that. They found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did. It’s probably breaking news, but it should be. It was a rigged election. Can’t have rigged elections. You need strong borders, strong elections and ideally a good press,” Trump said.
But the news media, he said, is “terrible,” “very crooked” and “very biased.” He said that “some day it’ll straighten out because it’s losing all credibility.”
After being introduced as “the most important leader in the world” by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, the United States president recapped the first year of his second term, complete with references to “Sleepy” Joe Biden, a failing Europe, the Radical Left, international tariffs, Chinese windmills, Los Angeles and Minnesota.
At one point, he took a shot at Rep. Ilhan Omar, who he called a “fake Congressperson” from “a country that’s not a country.” Omar was born in war-torn Somalia and her family immigrated to the U.S. in the 1990s, eventually settling in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Trump also touted an executive order “banning large institutional investors from buying single family homes,” capping credit card interest rates at 10% and keeping AI advancement in the United States.
“We should be paying the lowest interest rate of everybody. Without us, most of the countries don’t even work. And then you have the protection factor. Without our military, which is the greatest in the world by far, without our military, you have threats that you wouldn’t believe,” he stated. “You don’t have threats because of us. That’s because of NATO.”
“Some of you are the greatest leaders anywhere in the world. You’re the greatest brains anywhere in the world,” he concluded. “The future is unlimited and to a large part, because of you, and we have to protect you and we have to cherish you. I always say we have to cherish our brilliant people, because there aren’t many of them.”
