Overview
- On Fox News, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller argued that taking Greenland is essential to U.S. national security and claimed Denmark lacks the ability to control or defend the territory.
- Miller advanced a contested historical-legal rationale that territorial control requires the capacity to defend, improve and inhabit land, calling the current arrangement unfair to American taxpayers.
- International law experts and commentators rejected his interpretation as contrary to the U.N. Charter and NATO obligations, noting that an attack on Denmark would trigger collective defense.
- Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that any U.S. attempt to seize Greenland by force would collapse NATO, saying, “Everything stops, including NATO.”
- HuffPost reported that President Trump threatened tariffs on European countries until a complete purchase of Greenland is secured, as public and political criticism of Miller’s remarks mounted, including from Republican Rep. Don Bacon.