President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Sunday that he intended to nominate Callista Gingrich, who served as his ambassador to the Vatican during his first term, as ambassador to Switzerland.
Ms. Gingrich is the wife of Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a loyal Trump ally. At the Republican National Convention this summer, Ms. Gingrich accused President Biden of attacking religious freedom, and she praised Mr. Trump for installing three Supreme Court justices who she said were “committed to protecting our God-given right to worship.”
The selection of Ms. Gingrich came amid a spate of announcements on Sunday that also included the choice of Mauricio Claver-Carone, who served during Mr. Trump’s first term as his senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, as the State Department’s special envoy for Latin America.
Mr. Trump also picked Ken Howery, one of the founders of PayPal, to be the next ambassador to Denmark. Mr. Howery served as the ambassador to Sweden during Mr. Trump’s first administration.
As part of the announcement of Mr. Howery, Mr. Trump revived the idea, floated during his first term, of buying Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark.
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” he wrote on social media.
That position followed his suggestion earlier on Sunday that his new administration might try to regain control of the Panama Canal. In a speech in Phoenix, Mr. Trump contended that the United States had “foolishly” ceded the canal to Panama during the President Jimmy Carter’s administration and was now being charged “ridiculous” fees to pass through the channel linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. President José Raúl Mulino of Panama flatly rejected Mr. Trump’s demand on Sunday.
A spokesman for the Danish government did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday, but in 2019 Copenhagen and the government of Greenland quickly dismissed the idea of American ownership of Greenland after Mr. Trump first made the suggestion.
The idea came from Ronald S. Lauder, the New York cosmetics heir, according to Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their book “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021.” Mr. Trump, they wrote, told his national security adviser that “a friend of mine, a really, really experienced businessman, thinks we can get Greenland.” That set off a special team that wrote a memo laying out options, including a lease proposal.
Greenland said it was “not for sale.”
Sherri Goodman, a former senior Pentagon official and a senior fellow with the Wilson Center Polar Institute, a Washington think tank, said Greenland was strategically important because of its proximity to the United States, an element that could appeal to Mr. Trump. Its ice caps, which are thawing because of climate change, could be saved if countries significantly cut the emissions from burning fossil fuels that are dangerously warming the planet, she said.
“Protecting these features and its people, as a NATO ally, while respecting its sovereignty, is a priority,” Ms. Goodman said.
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