DONALD Trump is sensationally considering sending $100,000 lump sums to Greenlanders in order to curry favour, a report claims.
US officials have reportedly discussed giving residents eye-watering payments of between $10,000 (£7,443) and $100,000 (£74,437).
It is just one of the solutions being mulled over by Washington who are “actively” discussing a potential offer to buy the semi-autonomous Danish territory, according to Reuters.
Trump may look to appease the 57,000 Greenlanders with a massive $5.7billion payout after warning yesterday that he would deploy military action to annex the territory.
Both Greenland and Denmark have repeatedly stressed the island is not for sale and any attack would spell the end of Nato.
But the president has doubled down on his ambitions by telling The New York Times that “ownership is very important” and that there “may be a choice” when it comes to either acquiring the landmass or preserving his European alliances.
He added that ownership is “psychologically needed for success”.
US Vice President JD Vance has echoed Trump’s words with scathing attacks on Europe’s handling of “critical” Greenland as its locals reject both Danish and US rule.
Vance told Fox News that Europe and Denmark have “not done a good job” in securing the area, claiming they underinvested in defences and failed to engage with Trump on the matter.
The Vice President issued a fresh warning to European leaders to “take the President of the United States seriously.”
Vance added that the Arctic territory was vital for the defence of the US and the world against possible Chinese or Russian missile attacks.
He said: “People do not realise that the entire missile defence infrastructure is partially dependent on Greenland.
“If God forbid the Russians and the Chinese – not saying they’re going to – but if, God forbid, somebody launched a nuclear missile into our continent, they launched a nuclear missile at Europe, Greenland is a critical part of that missile defence.
“So you ask yourself, ‘have the Europeans, have the Danes done a proper job of securing Greenland and of making sure it can continue to serve as an anchor for world security and missile defence?’ And the answer is obviously they haven’t.”
He later stressed: “We’re asking our European friends to take the security of that landmass more seriously, because if they’re not, the United States is going to have to do something about it.”
Vance’s remarks come after an astonishing week when Trump captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and threatened military intervention across the Western Hemisphere.
Many Greenlanders are now fearful of what is to come, but the territory’s main opposition party, Naleraq, has described the situation as a “window of opportunity”.
Juno Berthelsen, MP and foreign policy spokesman for Naleraq, dismissed Trump’s threats of using military force as “unrealistic”.
But he conceded America’s renewed push to secure the resource-rich territory could offer “concrete steps to better Greenlandic people’s lives.”
He said: “We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danish. We want to be Greenlanders.”
The US already has more than 100 military personnel permanently stationed at its Pituffik base in Greenland’s north-western tip.
The facility has been operated by the US since World War Two.
Under existing agreements with Denmark, the US has the power to bring as many troops as it wants to Greenland.
Experts have said it would be alarmingly simple for the US to make a grab for the strategically important Arctic island.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15752342/jd-vance-attacks-europe-greenland-danish-rule/
