President Donald Trump has appeared on the world stage to demand immediate talks to acquire Greenland, only to confuse the autonomous Danish territory with a completely different country.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, the 79-year-old president repeatedly referred to Greenland as “Iceland”—a much smaller island about 200 miles away—as he lashed out at NATO allies for not handing over the nation.
“I know we’d be there for them. I don’t know that they’d be there for us with all of the money we expend, with all of the blood, sweat and tears… They’re not there for us on Iceland, I can tell you,” Trump said.
“Their stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland.”
The embarrassing blunder came in a meandering speech in which a low-energy Trump seemingly ruled out using military force to take over Greenland.
“We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable,” he told global leaders.
“But I won’t do that. OK. Now everyone says, “Oh, good.” That’s probably the biggest statement, because people thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
But he argued that America should own Greenland because only the U.S. had the capacity to defend it, bizarrely suggesting that nations could not defend something they don’t own.
He also invoked the German invasion of Denmark in World War II and criticized America for not seizing Greenland at that time.
He then demanded “immediate negotiations” to transfer ownership to the U.S., claiming it would enhance the NATO alliance.
“We give so much and we get so little in return,” he lamented.
Trump’s highly anticipated speech took place amid escalating global tensions over his latest power grab.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has rejected his demands, emphatically, asserting his country’s sovereignty over the Arctic territory.
In Davos, French President Emmanuel Macron publicly criticized what he described as attempts to leverage economic power and territorial ambition, while across the English Channel, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer delivered his own speech condemning Trump’s pressure tactics.
“The future status of Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland and Denmark alone,” he said.
But Canada’s Prime Mark Carney gave one of the most notable speeches so far, using his address Tuesday to warn that the old rules-based global order was undergoing a “rupture” and warning that “the middle powers must act together – because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”
Trump’s repeated confusion between two countries sparked the word “Iceland” to trend online and is likely to be an ongoing talking point in Davos as global diplomatic tensions simmer.
Greenland is a large, mostly ice-covered, autonomous territory of Denmark, while Iceland is a smaller, independent island nation with a milder climate and active volcanoes.
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