From NBC News:
“I may do that for Greenland, too,” Trump said during a White House roundtable on rural health care after discussing his tariff policies. “I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security.”
The president didn’t elaborate further, including which countries he could target. U.S. tariffs imposed on European Union exports are currently capped at 15%. The E.U. is America’s largest trading partner and largest source of imports.
A bipartisan congressional delegation met with Danish and Greenlandic leaders in Copenhagen to discuss the president’s efforts to acquire Greenland.
Officials from Greenland and Denmark have rejected the idea, but earlier this week, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland’s minister of foreign affairs and research, Vivian Motzfeldt, met with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in D.C.
After the meeting, Rasmussen said there were no breakthroughs about the future of the island, but he expressed a willingness to “continue to talk” about the administration’s security concerns in the Arctic.
“It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland. We made it very, very clear that this is not in the interest of the kingdom,” he said.
“Of course, we share, to some extent, his concerns,” Rasmussen said. “The big difference is whether that must lead to a situation where the U.S. must acquire Greenland, and that is absolutely not necessary.”
WATCH:
Trump: "I may put a tariff on countries if they don't go along with Greenland because we need Greenland for national security" pic.twitter.com/rW81O5yMQF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 16, 2026
Read more at NBC News
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REPORT: Denmark and US create working group for ‘fundamental disagreement’ on Greenland
