U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that President Donald Trump’s plan to buy Greenland was “not a joke.”
Earlier this month, Trump said that U.S. economic security depends on controlling Greenland and the Panama Canal. Trump suggested buying or otherwise taking control of the autonomous territory, which is part of Denmark.
“Well, I think President Trump, what he has said publicly is he wants to buy it. He wants to pay for it. And how we worked on something like that, how something like that is approached, obviously is probably done better in the appropriate forums as opposed, a lot of this stuff is done publicly and it’s not helpful because it puts the other side in a tough spot domestically,” Rubio said on Megyn Kelly’s SiriusXM show.
Rubio said Trump’s plans had nothing to do with acquiring land.
“This is not a joke … this is not about acquiring land for the purpose of acquiring land. This is in our national interest and it needs to be solved,” he said. “President Trump’s put out there what he intends to do, which is to purchase it.”
Greenland, where about 57,000 people live, is a fully autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland’s economy is dependent on Danish subsidies and fishing.
America has tried to buy it before. In 1867, when President Andrew Johnson bought Alaska, he also considered buying Greenland. The U.S. also tried to buy Greenland in 1946. According to documents in the National Archives, the United States proposed to pay Denmark $100 million in gold to buy Greenland. The sale never went through, but the U.S. got the military base it wanted on the island.
Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule Air Base, is located in Greenland. It exists due to agreements between the U.S. and the Kingdom of Denmark, specifically addressing mutual defense, according to Space Force.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen previously said “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.”
Trump previously said that he wouldn’t rule out military intervention or economic penalties to get what he wants on both Greenland and the Panama Canal.
