00:00Ambassador, great to have you with us. And I wonder if you could take the perspective that you got on the ground in Copenhagen and give us a sense of how vital an issue this is for folks in Denmark and how you see them as perceiving what's happening here with the conversation about Greenland and what's happening in Washington today.
00:15Sure. And thank you for asking. I have to say, we also want to think about the Greenlanders, right? Not just Copenhagen, but Nook Greenland, because I spent a lot of time there as well. And Greenlanders are great friends of the United States. They're actually related to our native population in Alaska. And so there's a lot of similarities in their cultures. They want prosperity and they want security, just like every other country.
00:42And what I learned on the ground is that Denmark doesn't have the capacity. They just don't have the funds or the people to be able to develop or secure Greenland. It's like when you own an asset like a house or a building and you can't really afford to take care of it and improve it. And so you just have to sell it. That's kind of the situation with Denmark and Greenland.
01:04Let's consider it's the world's largest island. It's one third the size of the continental U.S. just off the northeast coast of the U.S.
01:13And here's Denmark, a country of less than six million people with an economy about the size of the state of Colorado.
01:20You have a particular insight into the way the president looks at this issue. And there is this comprehensive defense agreement that's in place.
01:27The U.S. could put more military bases there, increase security there. Yet the president said in that interview with The New York Times last week, there is an element of psychology of ownership that's important to him.
01:37Help us understand that, why that agreement isn't enough to satisfy the president. He looks to sort of fortify our position in the Arctic.
01:43Sure. It's a fair question. I have three points I'd like to make. First is that Denmark's part of NATO was a founding member of the NATO alliance, but they're actually not complying with Article 3, which says that every NATO ally has the ability to defend their own territory.
02:01And then Article 5 come to the defense of their of their allies.
02:05The first article I'm referring to is Article 3. It's the defense of your own territory.
02:12They they've never been able to defend Greenland. In fact, in 2019, my second point, President Trump pressed current prime minister, Metro Friedrichsen, in his first term and said, look, Greenland's not secure.
02:26We need Denmark to do more. You need to secure Greenland. Look at what's happening, because he has the best intel.
02:31She has some of it. And so she committed to spending two hundred million dollars to increase the security of Greenland.
02:39This was Danish funds to do this. Well, flash forward, she spent two million and of the two hundred.
02:45So one percent. And it wasn't even on security.
02:48So she reneged on her commitment. So he cannot trust anything that she says because she's not credible.
02:55Danes elect prime ministers to take care of them and use their taxes for things like social welfare programs,
03:01like free health care, free child care, free college. That's what they want their money spent on.
03:06And then third, you know, Greenland's going independent and no one's talking about that.
03:11In the 20th century, Iceland went independent in the 21st century.
03:17And they were part of the kingdom of Denmark in the 21st century.
03:21Greenland will go independent. The majority of the Greenlanders want independence.
03:25And President Trump is what he is doing is he is preempting the idea that Greenland would link with China,
03:33say, rather than the U.S. when they are part of North America.
03:38How is he? How is he doing that, Carla? I mean, I mean, when I hear that they want independence,
03:42my first thought is, OK, let them have independence is their country. I mean, who are we to go in there?
03:46But it also raises the issue about the fact that we've had a formal relationship with Greenland going back to the post-World War II era,
03:54a relatively peaceful arrangement. So what I don't understand is if the U.S.
03:59thinks that there is a strategic importance for us to be more involved, to have a greater military presence
04:04and maybe even greater control over a certain land out there, why not just pick up the phone and talk it over?
04:09Why are we rattling the saber at an ally?
04:11Well, we're not rattling the saber at all. It's actually the prime minister.
04:15He just said he would attack them if they didn't actually agree to what he wanted.
04:19Well, she never picked up the phone to actually talk to President Trump in a whole year.
04:24All of that, she was going behind his back to talk to European leaders who don't have credible defenses of their own.
04:31And she was complaining. And I think she's trying to raise her poll numbers internally.
Be the first to comment