Trump says Greenland is ‘part of North America’ but rules out using force | Davos

Donald Trump has stepped up his claim to take over Greenland in an extraordinary speech in Davos but insisted the US will not use force to seize what he called the “big, beautiful piece of ice”.

Addressing thousands of business and political leaders at the World Economic Form in the Swiss ski resort, the US president said he was “seeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States”.

“I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force. All the US is a asking for is a place called Greenland,” he said. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember.”

Repeatedly referring to the US record in the second world war, Trump told the global audience: “Without us, now you’d all be speaking German, or a little Japanese perhaps.”

He said Denmark had been overrun by Germany, “after just hours of fighting”, prompting the US to intervene, “at great cost and expense”. He insisted that only the US is now fit to defend “this enormous, unsecured island”.

Trump said: “You need the ownership to defend it. You can’t defend it on a lease. Who the hell wants to defend a licence agreement, or a lease?”

Handing over Greenland to the US would not represent a threat to Nato, which he said had “an excellent secretary general”, greeting Mark Rutte, in the audience.

But he repeatedly returned to his argument that the US has had a raw deal from Nato, funding the protection of other European countries.

In a rambling speech, Trump also claimed to have delivered a historic economic upturn, and rejected the idea of what he called the “new green scam”.

He reeled off a list of what he claimed were US economic achievements over his past 12 months in power. These included what he called, “virtually no inflation”, the rejection of clean energy, which he repeatedly called the “green new scam”.

Trump arrived late in Switzerland on Wednesday, after an electrical fault on Air Force One forced him to switch planes, but cleared his diary to address the high-powered gathering on time.

The president’s threat at the weekend to slap punitive tariffs on eight European countries blamed for blocking his threat to take over Greenland has dominated discussions in Davos this week.

Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, used his Davos speech on Tuesday to warn mid-sized countries to unite in the face of US “coercion”. “Middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” he said.

Trump took direct aim at Carney in his speech, claiming that Canada had had, “a lot of freebies” from the US. “Canada lives because of the US: remember that Mark, next time you make your statements.”