Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said Wednesday he suggested months ago to President Donald Trump that the United States should purchase Greenland — and even met with a top Danish diplomat to discuss a potential sale.
While addressing the Talk Business & Politics Power Lunch in Little Rock, Arkansas, Cotton argued that acquiring the 836,300-square-mile island with a population of approximately 56,000 would be strategically advantageous for the U.S.
“Obviously, the right decision for this country,” Cotton said when on the topic of President Trump’s interest in acquiring the Danish territory, reported Talk Business and Politics. “I can reveal to you that several months ago, I met with the Danish ambassador and I proposed that they sell Greenland to us.”
The junior Arkansas Republican senator explained Greenland’s strategic location and abundance of minerals are among several advantages of controlling the island, saying the territory is “vital to our national security” and that its “economic potential is untold.”
“Anyone who can’t see that is blinded by Trump derangement,” he added. “I told the president you should buy it, as well.”
For weeks, it has been reported that President Trump inquired about buying Greenland — a largely autonomous nation technically under Danish ownership. This week he postponed a trip next month to Denmark to meet with its prime minister because the Danish government said it won’t sell Greenland to the U.S.
“Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time,” President Trump tweeted on Tuesday. “The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct.”
Later, the president was more critical of Frederiksen’s response, calling her statement “nasty.”
“It was not a nice way of doing it. She could have just said, ‘no, we’d rather not do it,'” he told reporters gathered on the South Lawn. “You don’t talk to the United States that way, at least under me.”
Frederiksen told Sermitsiaq: “Greenland is not for sale. Greenland is not Danish. Greenland belongs to Greenland.”
Greenland’s foreign ministry also rejected the idea in a tweet, writing: “Greenland is rich in valuable resources such as minerals, the purest water and ice, fish stocks, seafood, renewable energy and is a new frontier for adventure tourism. We’re open for business, not for sale.”
The UPI contributed to this report.