Ted Cruz defends Trump’s pitch to acquire Greenland

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WASHINGTON — During his first term, Donald Trump toyed with purchasing Greenland. Much of Washington and Europe dismissed the idea at the time as another of the president’s eccentricities.

But as he heads back to the White House, Trump is stressing that people should take the idea seriously. And Sen. Ted Cruz agrees.

“This is a serious possibility,” the Republican senator said on his podcast published Wednesday.

Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark, with Greenlanders holding full Danish citizenship. Scandinavian powers have occupied parts of the territory for over a thousand years, and Denmark considers it an integral part of the country.

Trump inquired about buying the territory back in 2019, drawn to its strategic location on the Arctic and its natural wealth of critical minerals. The proposal was largely mocked on both sides of the Atlantic and led to a diplomatic row with Denmark, a NATO ally. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the idea “absurd” at the time, prompting Trump to cancel a scheduled trip to Copenhagen, snubbing then-reigning Queen Margrethe II.

Since his reelection in November, Trump has raised anew the prospect of taking Greenland, along with the Panama Canal, which the U.S. fully ceded to Panama in 1999. His son, Donald Trump, Jr., traveled to Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, on Tuesday, telling local media he was there on a personal visit. On the same day, the president-elect, speaking with reporters, refused to rule out using military force to take Greenland and the Panama Canal. Invading Danish territory would be a precedent-breaking violation between NATO allies.

On his podcast, Cruz supported the national security argument for acquiring Greenland. Its location would expand U.S. control of the Arctic Circle, an area that could be a critical trading route as global temperatures rise and a potential conflict zone with Russia or China, Cruz said. Greenland also has abundant natural reserves of critical minerals necessary for clean energy technology and electronics.

“The United States acquiring Greenland is a very, very good idea,” Cruz said. “To be clear, Trump talked about this his first term in office and at the time, a lot of people, particularly the media, dismissed it. They said, oh it’s Trump talking. It’s just some crazy idea. But I’ll tell you acquiring Greenland has enormous advantages to the United States.”

Cruz, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the likeliest way to acquire Greenland would be to buy it, though the would-be price is unclear. Cruz pointed out the U.S. bought the Louisiana Purchase from France and Alaska from Russia. He did not discuss a military operation to take Greenland and said there would most likely need to be a referendum among Greenlanders. He noted during an interview with ABC News that "Anything can be not for sale until it suddenly is."

“We bought Alaska, and it was dismissed at the time as Seward’s Folly,” Cruz said, referring to then-Secretary of State William Seward.

Cruz is not the only senator who has expressed openness to buying Greenland. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania, also compared the idea to the Louisiana Purchase, saying it’s an idea worth hearing out.

“There’s a lot of talk about Greenland, for example, and there’s a lot of freak-outs and of course I would never support taking it by force, but I do think it’s a responsible conversation,” Fetterman said in a Tuesday interview with Fox News. “If they were open to acquiring it — whether just buying it outright — I mean if anyone thinks that’s bonkers it’s like, well, remember the Louisiana Purchase?”

Russia sold Alaska as it was financially reeling from the Crimean War, and France sold the Louisiana Purchase, which covers roughly a third of the lower 48, as it was in conflict with Spain and Great Britain. Denmark is a politically and economically stable country, and Danish leaders have balked at Trump’s insistence on gaining Greenland.

“On one hand, I am pleased regarding the rise in American interest in Greenland,” Frederiksen said Tuesday on Danish media. “But of course it is important that it takes place in a way where it is the Greenlanders’ decision, what their future holds.”

Frederiksen added that Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Egede “has been very, very clear — that there is a lot of support among the people of Greenland that Greenland is not for sale and will not be in the future either.”

Cruz said the likelihood of acquiring Greenland is significantly higher than retaking the Panama Canal, which the U.S. ceded to Panama in a treaty negotiated under President Jimmy Carter. Cruz said giving the canal to Panama was “one of the most egregious foreign policy mistakes in the history of our country,” saying it opened the door for greater Chinese influence in a key global shipping route.

Still, Cruz suspected Trump’s comments on retaking the canal were largely a negotiating tactic to pressure a more favorable agreement for U.S. shipping and diminish China’s presence in the canal.

Ricaurte Vásquez Morales, the head of the Panama Canal Authority, said Wednesday that the canal is neutral and denied that there is malign Chinese influence on its operations.

“The accusations that China is running the canal are unfounded,” he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. “China has no involvement whatsoever in our operations.”

Trump has also mockingly made allusions to Canada becoming part of the United States to needle Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Cruz dismissed those claims as trolling.

“I don’t think that is at all possible. I think that was purely a troll,” Cruz said. “I think Greenland is quite possible and I put Panama somewhere in the middle.”