Secretary of State Marco Rubio told members of Congress on Monday that there’s no serious threat of the use of military force to seize Greenland and that the goal is to simply buy the vast frozen island from Denmark in an amicable transaction with a NATO ally, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region. The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the US Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal,” said Karoline Leavitt in a statement to the Journal on Tuesday, immediately undercutting Rubio’s assurances, lol.
Not that it matters but fun fact: The most recent still-extant and peaceable American territorial acquisition was with none other than Denmark, who sold the then-Danish Virgin Islands to the US for $25 million in 1917, equivalent to $722 million in 2026. The most recent still-extant non-peaceable American territorial acquisition was the seizure of the Northern Mariana Islands from the Empire of Japan in 1945. The Japanese got $0 for it and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was hanged in 1948.