A growing number of Republican lawmakers are sounding off against President Donald Trump’s warning that the U.S. might take Greenland by force.
The president’s threats and refusal to rule out using troops to seize Danish territory have sparked mutiny on Capitol Hill and left the U.S.’s closest European allies scrambling.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Bacon, joined Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego and Rep. Ro Khanna on Thursday to introduce a resolution reaffirming the U.S. partnership with Greenland and Denmark.
“Safeguarding our relationships with our NATO allies should be paramount, with Greenland treated as our partner, not a possession,” said Murkowski.
Bacon warned that talk of invasion hurts U.S. national security by undermining alliances and that talk of controlling Greenland “makes us sound like Russia and China.”
The Nebraska Republican told his local newspaper that there would be GOP support for impeaching Trump, who has already been impeached twice, if the U.S. invaded Greenland.
“If he went through with the threats, I think it would be the end of his presidency,” Bacon said. “And he needs to know: The off-ramp is realizing Republicans aren’t going to tolerate this, and he’s going to have to back off. He hates being told no, but in this case, I think Republicans need to be firm.”
The introduction of legislation came one day after Trump fired off a pair of posts where he said anything less than Greenland being in the hands of the U.S. was “unacceptable.”
It upped the pressure as the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers met on Thursday with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House.
Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters after the meeting that the “fundamental disagreement” remains.
A bipartisan delegation of lawmakers, including Murkowski and GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, is headed to Copenhagen on Friday, where they will meet with Danish and Greenlandic leaders to reaffirm support for the close allies.
Tillis has repeatedly sounded off against the president’s threats to invade Greenland. He has called the U.S. taking over the semi-autonomous territory “absurd” and said the president is not getting good advice on the matter.
Sen. Mitch McConnell also eviscerated the president’s argument for taking control of Greenland while turning on allies on the Senate floor on Thursday.
“Close ties with our northernmost allies is what makes America’s extensive reach in the Arctic actually possible,” McConnell said. “And I have yet to hear from this administration a single thing we need from Greenland that the sovereign people is ready and willing to grant us.”
He said the push for Greenland was “incinerating the hard-won trust of loyal allies in exchange for no meaningful change in U.S. access to the Arctic.”
As Trump obsesses over the U.S. taking over Greenland, European allies have been ramping up their military presence in the territory at the request of Denmark.
Sweden, Norway and Germany all confirmed deployments to the territory to bolster security in the region.
Meanwhile, multiple polls show the vast majority of Americans oppose attempting to take over.
75 percent of Americans oppose the U.S. attempting to take control of Greenland, a CNN poll released Thursday found. Only 25 percent favored it.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week found only 17 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s effort to acquire Greenland, while 47 percent opposed it. Another 36 percent did not know or skipped the question.
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