REUTERS/Kevin LamarqueUS President Donald Trump said that he is no longer obliged to think only about peace after he did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize, because he reiterated his demand for control of Greenland.
In a message to the prime minister of Norway, Trump blamed the country for not giving him the prize.
“Considering that your country has decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for stopping the 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel the obligation to think purely about Peace, although it has always prevailed, but now I can think about what is good and appropriate” for the US”, said Trump in a message obtained by the US media.
“The World is not safe unless we have Complete and Total Control over Greenland,” he added.
CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, confirmed the message and its content.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said he received the text message on Sunday in response to a text he and Finnish president Alexander Stubb sent to Trump.
Støre said they conveyed opposition to the proposed tariff increase in the Greenland dispute, and pointed to the need for de-escalation, suggesting a three-way phone call on the same day.
Støre noted that an independent committee, not the Norwegian government, awards the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump has made no secret of his desire to be awarded the annual prize.
He further insisted that the US should take over Greenland for national security reasons. The sparsely populated but resource-rich Arctic island is well placed for early warning systems in case of missile attacks and for monitoring ships in the region.
Trump has reiterated that he wants the US to buy Greenland and has not ruled out using military force against a member of the NATO security alliance to get it.
Over the weekend, he said he would impose a 10% tariff on goods from eight NATO allies starting in February if they oppose his proposed takeover, and threatened to raise it to 25% in June.
In his message to Støre, Trump said that Denmark cannot protect Greenland from Russia or China, and asked “why do they have “ownership rights” anyway?”
“I have done more for NATO than any other person since its inception, and now, NATO must do something for the United States,” he concluded.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Monday that any decision about the future status of Greenland “belongs to the people of Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone”, and called the use of tariffs against allies “wrong”.
Danish defense minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Greenland’s Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Motzfeldt are scheduled to meet Monday with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Last week, the governments of Denmark and Greenland, together with NATO allies, decided to increase the military presence and exercise activity in the Arctic and North Atlantic.
Several European states have sent a small number of military personnel to Greenland on a so-called reconnaissance mission.
As stated in Trump’s recent message, he claimed to have ended eight wars since his second term as president began last year.
The peace prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
Later, when US forces seized and removed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, accusing him of drug trafficking and other crimes, Trump did not endorse Machado as the country’s next leader and instead supported Maduro’s vice-president as interim head of government.
Machado, who has admired Trump, met with him at the White House last week and presented his medal to him. The Nobel Foundation said the award would not be “even symbolically, passed on or handed out”.
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