During this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” U.N. Ambassador Michael Waltz explained the Trump administration’s strategic interest in Greenland, pointing to threats from Russia and China.
According to Waltz, President Donald Trump would not “wait” until American adversaries were on the United States’ doorstep to act on Greenland.
“And just from a broader NATO standpoint, look at where NATO was the beginning of President Trump’s first term, with less than seven countries contributing to bare minimum,” he said. “Now, not only do you have everyone contributing to bare minimum, you have a number going to double that towards five percent of their GDP. NATO is far better for some of the tough love from President Trump. And look, I have to push back respectfully on this notion that the Arctic — that there aren’t imminent threats in the Arctic.”
“Russia is modernizing its nuclear program. It has nuclear-powered cruise missiles now that they’re testing to evade our radars,” Waltz continued. “China is tripling the size of its nuclear arsenal. Shannon, all of those assets, all of those missiles will fly over the Arctic if they were ever to attack the United States. President Trump isn’t going to wait until they’re right there on our doorstep. So, what is he doing? He’s putting in the Iron Dome. We have to have the latitude to do that. Look at the shipping lanes. Russia, 60 icebreakers, China building its own fleet. What has President Trump done? He’s now commissioned with Finland a plan to get a dozen of our own icebreakers up there. How many heavy icebreakers from Denmark or from Canada, Shannon? Zero. Zero.”
He added, “So, look, there is also Article Three of the NATO treaty that each member nation has a responsibility to defend its territory. And the reality is, Denmark is a great ally in many ways, but they have ignored Greenland from a defense standpoint. And they have ignored the Greenlandic native, Inuit people. Final point there. If you look in contrast to Alaska Natives, there’s an Alaska sovereign wealth fund, Shannon, that has over $80 billion in assets benefiting Alaska Natives. If you get a cancer diagnosis in Greenland right now, it’s darn near a death sentence. Denmark has not invested in the way that it should have over the years. In fact, you’ve had scandals like in the 1970s, where they were sterilizing Greenlandic women, so they couldn’t have kids, and then therefore they wouldn’t have to pay for them anymore. So, let’s get all of the kind of facts out on the table. And President Trump is going to do what it takes to defend the American people, even when our allies are ignoring these glaring threats.”
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