{"id":297973,"date":"2026-02-23T10:16:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T10:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/297973\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T10:16:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T10:16:15","slug":"greenland-says-no-thanks-to-trumps-us-hospital-boat-greenland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/297973\/","title":{"rendered":"Greenland says \u2018no, thanks\u2019 to Trump\u2019s US hospital boat | Greenland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greenland has said it does not need medical assistance from other countries, after Donald Trump<\/a> said he was sending a hospital ship to the autonomous Danish territory he wants to acquire.<\/p>\n

The US president said he would dispatch the vessel in a social media post on Saturday, claiming that Greenlanders were not getting the healthcare they needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there,\u201d Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s on the way!!!\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump included an image depicting the hospital ship USNS Mercy with his Truth Social post. Illustration: @realDonaldTrump<\/p>\n

His offer, however, was politely rejected by Nuuk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will be \u2018no thanks\u2019 from us,\u201d Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the Greenlandic prime minister, wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s idea to send a US hospital ship here to Greenland has been duly noted. But we have a public health system where care is free for citizens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trump has said repeatedly that the US needs to acquire Greenland for national security reasons, and appointed Landry as US special envoy to the vast, mineral-rich Arctic island<\/a> in December.<\/p>\n

In Greenland, as in Denmark<\/a>, access to healthcare is free at the point of use and funded by the taxpayer. Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, responded to Trump\u2019s social post by defending her country\u2019s system.<\/p>\n

Writing on Facebook, Frederiksen said she was \u201chappy to live in a country where there is free and equal access to health for all. Where it\u2019s not insurances and wealth that determine whether you get proper treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that Greenland had \u201cthe same approach\u201d as Denmark<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Troels Lund Poulsen, the Danish defence minister, also rejected Trump\u2019s claim that people in Greenland were being denied medical treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs,\u201d he told the Danish broadcaster DR. \u201cThey receive it either in Greenland, or, if they require specialised treatment, they receive it in Denmark. So it\u2019s not as if there\u2019s a need for a special healthcare initiative in Greenland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lund Poulsen added: \u201cTrump is constantly tweeting about Greenland. So this is undoubtedly an expression of the new normal that has taken hold in international politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are six hospitals in Greenland serving a population of fewer than 60,000 people. In early February, the territory\u2019s government signed an agreement with Copenhagen to improve Greenlandic patients\u2019 access to treatment in hospitals in Denmark.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Saturday, Denmark\u2019s military coastguard said it had evacuated a crew member of a US submarine off the coast of Greenland after the sailor requested urgent medical attention.<\/p>\n

The Danish Joint Arctic Command said on its Facebook page<\/a> the crew member had been retrieved by helicopter about 7 nautical miles off the coast of Greenland\u2019s capital, Nuuk, and transferred to a hospital in the city.<\/p>\n

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump\u2019s repeatedly expressed desire to control Greenland has put the US relationship with Denmark and its other Nato allies under significant strain.<\/p>\n

Last week, King Frederik of Denmark paid his second visit to Greenland in the space of 12 months in an attempt to demonstrate unity with the territory in the face of Trump\u2019s overtures.<\/p>\n

The US president backed down on earlier threats to seize Greenland unilaterally after striking a \u201cframework\u201d deal in January with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, to ensure greater US influence.<\/p>\n

However, Frederiksen and the Greenlandic prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said at the Munich security conference this month they feared the US was still interested<\/a> in taking control of the island.<\/p>\n

Frederiksen said pressure from the US was \u201cunacceptable\u201d and \u201coutrageous\u201d, while Nielsen said his country had never before felt threatened in such a way.<\/p>\n

Agence France-Presse and Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greenland has said it does not need medical assistance from other countries, after Donald Trump said he was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-297973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}