The US Secretary of State spoke out against the president-elect’s idea
US President-elect Donald Trump’s idea of taking Greenland is not good and will never actually happen, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.
Trump has argued that US control over the Arctic island is a matter of national security and has refused to rule out taking the Danish autonomous territory by force if necessary.
“The idea expressed about Greenland is obviously not a good one,” Blinken said on Wednesday, during a joint press conference with his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot in Paris.
“But it’s not going to happen, so we shouldn’t waste time talking about it,” he added.
Blinken is visiting South Korea, Japan and France on his last trip abroad before President Joe Biden leaves office and Trump is sworn in on January 20. He was a long-time foreign policy adviser to Biden and spent the past four years leading the State Department in opposing policies enacted by Trump between 2017 and 2021.
Trump won the November 2024 election with both the electoral college and the popular vote, defeating Biden’s former running mate and chosen replacement, Kamala Harris.
In recent weeks, the US president-elect has renewed his interest in Greenland, which he had previously offered to buy from Denmark. Control over the island was an “absolute necessity” for US national security, he said on Tuesday.
Asked during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday if he could “assure the world” that he would not use “military or economic coercion” in his efforts to acquire Greenland or the Panama Canal, Trump said he would not.
“No, I can’t assure you on either of those two. But I can say this, we need them for economic security,” he said.
“People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up because we need it,” he added, referring to Greenland.
The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, flew to the island on Tuesday and spent several hours in the territory’s capital, Nuuk. He was accompanied by several aides and a documentary film crew.