In March, when the White House dispatched an uninvited delegation to Greenland, the move was intended to be a charm offensive of sorts. Vice President JD Vance, his wife and his colleagues hoped their visit to the island — which Donald Trump is apparently determined to acquire — would make a good opening impression with locals.
That did not work. As my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim explained, officials in Greenland made a series of efforts to make clear that they did not want the U.S. delegation to be there. Soon after, Trump nevertheless said: “We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100%.” He added that there’s a “good possibility that we could do it without military force” but said he wasn’t going to “take anything off the table.”
In April, the White House also reportedly began work on a financial estimate gauging what it would cost to control Greenland.
In May, the process appears to be ongoing. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is “stepping up its intelligence-gathering efforts regarding Greenland, drawing America’s spying apparatus into President Trump’s campaign to take over the island, according to two people familiar with the effort.” The article added:
Several high-ranking officials under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard issued a “collection emphasis message” to intelligence-agency heads last week. They were directed to learn more about Greenland’s independence movement and attitudes on American resource extraction on the island. The classified message asked agencies, whose tools include surveillance satellites, communications intercepts and spies on the ground, to identify people in Greenland and Denmark who support U.S. objectives for the island.
The Journal’s report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, went on to note that collection-emphasis messages help set “intelligence-agency priorities, directing resources and attention to high-interest targets.”
Or put another way, the White House is still quite serious about taking over the island.
Administration officials had an opportunity to push back against the reporting, but they did largely the opposite. A National Security Council spokesperson told the Journal, “The president has been very clear that the U.S. is concerned about the security of Greenland and the Arctic.”
Similarly, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard complained about classified leaks, but she did not say that the leak was untrue.
This comes on the heels of Trump’s latest appearance on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” which included a question from Kristen Welker about whether he’d rule out the use of military force to take Greenland. “I don’t rule it out,” he replied. “I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there. We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of, and we’ll cherish them, and all of that.” The latest national Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that 76% of Americans oppose trying to take control of Greenland. By all appearances, the White House doesn’t much care. But this isn’t the only constituency that matters. The Wall Street Journal also reported that on the island itself, Trump’s odd territorial ambitions have pushed Greenland’s population toward its colonial power, Denmark. “In recent weeks,” the article noted, “Greenland and Denmark have moved closer together as officials in Nuuk and Copenhagen sought to reinvigorate their relationship and to look with fresh eyes at outstanding problems.” In other words, the American president’s efforts have been having the opposite of their intended effect.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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