The US president-elect has offered to buy the island from Denmark, which has firmly rejected the proposal
US President-elect Donald Trump has shared a video purportedly showing residents of Greenland welcoming his plan to purchase the world’s largest island from Denmark. Local media have cast doubt on the authenticity of the demonstration.
The two-minute clip published by Trump on his Truth Social account on Thursday shows a crowd of people wearing the iconic red ‘MAGA’ caps. They expressed their wish for Greenland to become part of the US and explained what benefits they expected from such a transition.
The location shown appears to be the same that visited by the president-elect’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, during a trip to the island on Tuesday, which promoted his father’s policy proposals.
On Monday, the president-elect claimed that “the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA’,” as he shared another video, which was published by a cap-wearing supporter of his bid to purchase the island.
MAGA stands for ‘Make America Great Again’ – a slogan used by Trump during his presidential election campaigns. People in the latest video said they wanted Greenland to get its share of benefits under the politician’s second presidency.
The Danish government has firmly rejected Trump’s bid to buy Greenland. King Frederick, the ceremonial sovereign of the European democratic monarchy, has even changed the national coat of arms to highlight Copenhagen’s claim to the island.
Danish public broadcaster DR News has claimed that the ‘MAGA’ group filmed by Donald Jr were not authentic Trump supporters. Instead, they were homeless and socially vulnerable people, who were offered a free meal in exchange for taking part in the publicity stunt, the outlet reported on Thursday, citing its sources in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.
The original ‘MAGA’ man from Greenland, whom the president-elect showcased on his social media on Monday, was identified by local media as a convicted pot trafficker from the local area. Timmy Zeeb, the reports said, was sentenced to four years in jail for his role in one of largest cannabis busts in the island’s history.
The flurry of territorial claims made by Trump involving other nations, as well as the provocative gestures by his close associates, are a smokescreen, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev argued on Thursday. It sets an “agenda of cosmic scale and … cosmic stupidity,” he said, paraphrasing a famous Russian literary quote. The practical consequence of the claims is to keep outgoing President Joe Biden in the shadows, Medvedev believes.
Trump’s rationale for seeking to acquire Greenland is that the island is in a strategic military location that would provide access to the rich natural resources of the Arctic.
