It is the first time Trump has ruled out using force, having previously been vague about how far he is willing to go in his push.
The president said the U.S. “probably won’t get anything” unless he decided to “use excessive strength and force” that he said would make the U.S. “frankly unstoppable.”
“But I won’t do that. Okay?” Trump said.
He added a minute later: “I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
Trump asserted that Denmark promised to spend “over $200 million to strengthen Greenland’s defenses” and then insisted it has “spent less than 1% of that.”
He was referring to a 2019 commitment from the Danish government, made during Trump’s first presidency, when he first floated the idea of the U.S. taking control of the semiautonomous territory of Denmark.
Copenhagen has not disputed that the implementation of that commitment has been slow.
In recent weeks, with Trump pushing the U.S. takeover again, Denmark’s Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen unveiled an expanded defense plan with a $2 billion budget that includes three new ships, long-range drones and more satellite capacity.
