{"id":237588,"date":"2026-01-10T09:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T09:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/237588\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T09:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T09:10:07","slug":"trump-threatens-to-acquire-greenland-whether-they-like-it-or-not-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/237588\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump threatens to acquire Greenland \u2018whether they like it or not\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> has doubled down on his threats to acquire Greenland<\/a>, saying the United States<\/a> is \u201cgoing to do something [there] whether they like it or not\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a meeting with oil and gas executives at the White House, the US president justified his comments by saying: \u201cIf we don\u2019t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland. And we\u2019re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbour.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cSo we\u2019re going to be doing something with Greenland, either the nice way or the more difficult way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Trump\u2019s latest comments come amid escalating tensions between the US and its Nato allies, including Denmark, over his administration\u2019s repeated attempts to take control of the largely autonomous Arctic territory. Mr Trump\u2019s posture has been firmly rejected by Denmark and Greenland.<\/p>\n

Despite admonishments from Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen, who recently said that a US attack on Greenland would mean the end of \u201cNato and therefore post second World War security\u201d, Mr Trump has continued to insist that he supports the alliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it weren\u2019t for me, you wouldn\u2019t have a Nato right now,\u201d the US president said on Friday. \u201cBut we\u2019re not going to allow Russia or China to occupy Greenland, and that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen if we don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Trump has long expressed interest in Greenland, first publicly floating the idea of acquiring the territory in 2019 during his first presidency. The proposal met swift opposition from Danish and Greenlandic leaders.<\/p>\n

He revived the topic in recent weeks, particularly after the US attack on Venezuela and its capture of president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife, an episode reflecting the White House\u2019s increasingly emboldened posture. Mr Trump said he needed Greenland \u201cvery badly\u201d as a national security imperative.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018They think we\u2019re for sale but they just don\u2019t understand us\u2019: Greenlanders on US takeover planOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Greenlanders have repeatedly expressed their refusal to be part of the US, with 85 per cent of the population rejecting the idea, according to a 2025 poll. Polling shows only 7 per cent of Americans support the idea of a US military invasion of the territory.<\/p>\n

Greenland was not the only issue on Mr Trump\u2019s radar on Friday. He warned that the US would take action against the Iranian regime if it moves to violently suppress protesters as demonstrations continue to grow across the country.<\/p>\n

Describing Iran as being in \u201cbig trouble\u201d, Mr Trump said: \u201cIf they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved. We\u2019ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd again, I tell the Iranian leaders: \u2018You\u2019d better not start shooting, because we\u2019ll start shooting too.\u2019\u201d \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has doubled down on his threats to acquire Greenland, saying the United States is \u201cgoing to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,3024,42,43,40,38,41,39,115],"class_list":{"0":"post-237588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-greenland","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}