“I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security. So I may do that,” Trump said during an event focused on health care at the White House.
Trump has repeatedly turned to the threat of tariffs to achieve his foreign policy goals.
But it’s not apparent those have been officially enacted, and the White House has not responded to multiple inquiries.
Trump’s ability to put in place sweeping country-specific tariffs could soon be limited, with the Supreme Court expected to issue a verdict in a landmark case.
Regardless of how the justices rule, Trump will continue to have a plethora of ways to increase tariffs, but the alternatives are more limited than the approach he’s taken to single out countries.
Republican Congressman Don Bacon said his threats against countries defending Greenland is “absurd”.
“Just on the weird chance that he’s serious about invading Greenland, I want to let him know it would probably be the end of his presidency,” Bacon said.
“Most Republicans know this is immoral and wrong, and we’re going to stand up against it.”
Greenland, a resource-rich island of 2.16 million square kilometres, is a former Danish colony and now an autonomous territory of Denmark, situated in the Arctic.
It’s the world’s least densely populated country and is so remote that its 56,000 residents travel by boat, helicopter and plane between its towns, which are predominantly scattered along the island’s western coast.
Nuuk, the territory’s capital city, is emblematic of those towns, featuring brightly coloured houses crowded together between a jagged coastline and inland mountains.
