Reuters/Kevin LamarqueUS President Donald Trump said that he no longer feels compelled to think about peace only after not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, reiterating his demand to control Greenland.
In a letter to Norway’s prime minister, Trump blamed the country for not giving him the award.
Trump said in the letter obtained by American media: “Given that your country has decided not to award me the Nobel Peace Prize because I stopped 8 wars in addition to that, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely about peace, even though it will always prevail, but I can now think about what is good and appropriate for the United States.”
He added: “The world will not be safe unless we fully and comprehensively control Greenland.”
CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, confirmed the message and its contents.
Prime Minister Jonas Jahr Stohr said he received the text message on Sunday in response to a text message he and Finnish President Alexander Stubb sent to Trump.
They expressed opposition to proposed tariff increases over the Greenland dispute, cited the need for de-escalation, and proposed a three-way phone call on the same day, Storr said.
Storr pointed out that an independent committee, not the Norwegian government, was the one that awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump did not hide his desire to receive the annual award.
He has increasingly insisted that the United States needs to seize Greenland for national security reasons. The sparsely populated, resource-rich Arctic island is well-placed for early warning systems in the event of missile attacks and to monitor ships in the area.
Trump reiterated that he wants the United States to buy Greenland and did not rule out using military force against a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to seize it.
Over the weekend, he said he would impose 10% tariffs on goods from eight NATO members starting in February if they opposed his proposed takeover, threatening to raise them to 25% by June.
In his letter to Storr, Trump said Denmark could not protect Greenland from Russia or China, and asked, “Why do they have ‘property rights’ anyway? There are no written documents. It’s just that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we’ve had boats land there too.”
“I have done more for NATO than anyone else since its founding, and now NATO must do something for the United States,” he concluded.
U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Monday that any decision on Greenland’s future status “is up to the people of Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone,” and described the use of tariffs against allies as “wrong.”
Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Greenlandic Foreign Minister Viviane Motzfeldt are scheduled to meet today, Monday, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
Last week, the Danish and Greenlandic governments, in cooperation with their NATO allies, decided to increase military presence and training activity in the Arctic and North Atlantic.
Several European countries sent small numbers of military personnel to Greenland on a so-called reconnaissance mission.
As stated in Trump’s last letter, he claimed to have ended eight wars since his second term as president, which began last year.
The Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
Later, when US forces arrested and removed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas, accusing him of drug trafficking and other crimes, Trump did not endorse Machado as the country’s next leader, instead supporting Vice President Maduro as interim head of government.
Machado, who has praised Trump, met at the White House last week and gave him her medal. The Nobel Foundation said that the award “cannot be transferred or distributed, even symbolically.”
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