President Trump on Wednesday confused Iceland — a Nordic nation of around 400,000 people known for volcanoes and glaciers — and Greenland, the semiautonomous Danish territory on which he has set his sights for reasons that he and his advisers say include U.S. security, access to minerals and “psychological” necessity.
In his closely watched speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Trump criticized Europe and cast the world as almost entirely reliant on the United States for peace and prosperity.
“I’m helping Europe, I am helping NATO, and until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me,” he said. However, it is Greenland that is at the center of the trans-Atlantic tensions over Mr. Trump’s repeated threats to seize the territory. .
“The problem with NATO is that we’ll be there for them, 100 percent, but I’m not sure that they’ll be there for us,” the president continued. “They’re not there for us on Iceland, that I can tell you. Our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So Iceland’s already cost us a lot of money.” The markets dipped on Tuesday over the tensions on Greenland.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, denied that Mr. Trump had misspoken, responding in a social media post to a reporter who wrote that he had appeared to mix the countries up multiple times.
“No he didn’t,” she wrote to the reporter. “His written remarks referred to Greenland as a ‘piece of ice’ because that’s what it is. You’re the only one mixing anything up here.”
Mr. Trump also mistook the two countries a day earlier, while speaking to reporters at the White House for 90 minutes to mark the anniversary of his return office. Mr. Trump has threatened hefty tariffs on European countries standing between him and his quest for control of Greenland. “As an example,” he told reporters before traveling to Switzerland, “Iceland, without tariffs, they wouldn’t even be talking to us about it.”
Claire Moses is a Times reporter in London, focused on coverage of breaking and trending news.
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