White House discusses options to acquire Greenland

The White House said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is "discussing a range of options" to acquire Greenland, making clear that using the US military is not off the table, reports CNN. 

"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," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Tuesday statement to CNN. 

"The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief's disposal." 

The statement comes as Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers this week that the Trump administration is considering buying Greenland as he downplayed concerns about US military intervention in the short term, according to two sources familiar with the discussion. 

The administration's aspirations related to the resource-rich, self-governing territory of Denmark had not been publicly mentioned in recent months, but officials were still discussing the matter behind the scenes. 

At the request of Rubio's team, the State Department in recent months provided an analysis of the untapped resources in Greenland, including rare earths, according to a source familiar with the analysis. One conclusion was that there is no reliable study of how vast those resources may be. The assessment also said there would be tremendous cost in accessing the resources given the cold temperatures and lack of infrastructure, the source said. 

Trump has been leaning into a more expansionist foreign policy - including a renewed interest in acquiring the Danish territory - in the days since the US capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. 

"We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday.