In a recent speech, U.S. President Donald Trump reaffirmed America’s stance on its attempt to acquire Greenland.

Despite many Americans finding this push to be overly aggressive, many others join the Trump Administration in believing it to be a vital task. 

A major motive for this goal is the Trump Administration’s view that Greenland belongs to America. During a speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump said, “This enormous unsecured island is actually part of North America on the northern frontier of the Western Hemisphere. That’s our territory.”

He also said, “Greenland is a vast, almost entirely uninhabited and undeveloped territory.”

“The people of Greenland don’t want to be annexed,” said sophomore Aeden Pinsker. “By his logic that it’s in the western hemisphere, every country in South America would also be promised to us.”

However, Trump said, “I have tremendous respect for both the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark. Tremendous respect. But every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend their own territory.” 

The main reason for this attempted acquisition is for alleged defense concerns. 

At the speech, Trump said that Denmark agreed to spend 200 million dollars on defending Greenland, but that only one percent had been spent. 

He said that the territory is, “sitting undefended in a key strategic location between the United States, Russia, and China…Wasn’t important nearly when we gave it back,” referring to America’s return of Greenland after it occupied it to prevent a Nazi German takeover in World War II. 

Trump continued, saying, “It is therefore a core national security interest of the United States of America. And in fact, it’s been our policy for hundreds of years to prevent outside threats from entering our hemisphere, and we’ve done it very successfully.”

“People always use ‘defense and security’ as a reason for taking over other countries, like Russia invading Ukraine. There are plenty of ways to fortify Greenland without taking over territory that doesn’t belong to us,” said sophomore Jordana Lorrimer. 

The President argued that only America could handle the defense of Greenland against anti-NATO powers like Russia and China. 

Trump said, “If we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland. And we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.”

“It’s the United States alone that can protect this giant mass of land, this giant piece of ice, develop it and improve it and make it so that it’s good for Europe and safe for Europe and good for us,” he said. 

Sophomore Logan Gladstone said, “I disagree with this argument, as Denmark has been able to protect it and they’re way less powerful than the United States.” 

In early January, Trump said that he was making moves to acquire the territory, and that the U.S. is “going to do something [there] whether they like it or not”. 

He also stated, “I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.” 

Despite fears that he would take Greenland by force, the President said that “We don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”

Earlier in January, Trump threatened to put a ten percent tariff on certain European countries for their opposition to his attempts to acquire Greenland, if a deal was not reached by February 1. He then said it would increase to 25 percent by June if a deal was not reached. 

However, he backed down on both threats.