January 13, 2024
cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder, photo: AFP
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump again promoted his plans to buy Greenland, the Danish territory in the Arctic. Trump stepped up rhetoric about the island during a press conference last Tuesday, refusing to rule out the use of military force to obtain it, if necessary.
The idea to buy Greenland initially came to Trump from cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder, according to the 2022 book ‘The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021’ by Peter Baker of the New York Times and Susan Glasser of The New Yorker. Trump and Lauder have known each other since their college days.
The notion was the subject of months of internal study and debate, perplexing Cabinet secretaries and advisers to the president. “A friend of mine, a really experienced businessman, thinks we can get Greenland,” Trump told his National Security adviser, according to the book. “What do you think?”
The island, with 56,000 inhabitants, is a self-governing territory of Denmark, and both the Danish government and local authorities reiterated that the island is not for sale. Denmark ruled it for more than 200 years and still maintains some control over its defense and foreign policy.
“People don’t even know if Denmark has any legal rights to it,” Trump said. “But if it does, they should give it up because we need it for national security.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries questioned Trump’s “obsession” with the territory Wednesday, something that captured the president-elect’s imagination for many years.
Lauder’s advice to then-President Trump to buy Greenland led to the creation of a team to research the idea and the drafting of a memo detailing options, such as a proposed lease, similar to a real estate deal in New York.
After a meeting in the Oval Office, one cabinet member thought the idea of acquiring Greenland was delusional. Some advisers feared that leaking the idea could generate a diplomatic incident, according to The Times. National Security Council staffers worked on the issue for months, for Trump to later claim it was his idea all along.
“I said, Why don’t we have that?” he told the authors. “I’m a real estate developer. I look at a map. I look at a corner, I say, ‘I’ve got to get that store for the building I’m building,’ etc. It’s not that different,” the president-elect sentenced. “I love maps. And I’ve always said, ‘Look at the size of this. It’s huge. That should be part of the United States,’” he added at the time.
But in reality, Lauder, the heir to Estée Lauder, had told Trump about the idea early in his presidency, even offering himself as an alternative channel with the Danish government to negotiate, according to the book.
The national security adviser at the time, John Bolton, told his deputy, Fiona Hill, to form a team to explore possible ideas. They engaged in secret discussions with the Danish ambassador and drafted an options memo.
Bolton was concerned about China’s growing influence in the Arctic and believed that a greater U.S. presence there would be a good thing, but felt that buying the territory would not be possible. But Trump stood firm.
The then-president floated the idea of using federal funds from Puerto Rico to buy Greenland and, on another occasion, suggested swapping the U.S. territory for the Danish one.
The Wall Street Journal eventually reported on the interest in Greenland, and the Danish government dismissed the idea. “When it became public, they lost their political nerve,” Trump said in 2021, according to The Times, even though the Danes had never considered selling the territory.
But Bolton thought the U.S. had missed an opportunity to get a better security deal, even though the U.S. would eventually reopen a consulate on the island. “If Trump had simply kept his mouth shut, we could have found out. But he’s gone, completely disappeared,” Bolton said, according to the authors.
A Trump envoy in the form of Donald Trump Jr. recently visited the island. “I’m hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday night. “My son, Don Jr. and several representatives, will be traveling there to visit some of the most magnificent areas and sights. Greenland is an amazing place, and the people will benefit greatly if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation. We will protect and cherish it, from a very vicious outside world – LET’S MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”
On Tuesday morning, he shared a video of his plane landing in Nuuk, the capital. “Don Jr. and my representatives landing in Greenland. The reception has been excellent,” he wrote, before adding that Greenlanders ”and the Free World, need security, strength and PEACE. this is a deal that needs to happen!”
Source: Pagina 12