Denmark needs to do more than add dog sleds to defend Greenland, given its icy territory has it “on the front lines of the war against Russia and China,” ex-National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said Sunday.
O’Brien, 58, defended former boss President-elect Donald Trump’s renewed clamorings about acquiring Greenland and underscored how the world’s largest island is an increasingly strategic resources-rich sea highway to the US.
“The Danes need to put the frigate that’s necessary there, they can put the air wings, they can put the missiles in Greenland, and they can put the infantry there that they need to defend [it],” O’Brien, who served under Trump, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Robert O’Brien (right), then-President Donald Trump’s national security adviser from 2019 to early 2021, tells Fox host Jason Chaffetz he agrees with his old boss when it comes to Greenland.
“Just like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are doing in Eastern Europe. Or they can pay us to do it,” O’Brien said of Denmark. “If they don’t want to do either of those things, they can let us buy Greenland, and Greenland can become part of Alaska. The native people of Greenland are very closely related to the people of Alaska.”
O’Brien stressed that the US can’t defend the Danish “empire” for “nothing” and should already receive compensation of some sort, alluding to a 1951 treaty that gives the US broad influence over its defense.
Trump, 78, set his sights on Greenland during his first administration. Acquiring the territory is something the US has attempted to do since at least the 1860s.
Last week, Trump revived his push for the Danish territory, declaring US ownership of Greenland an “absolute necessity” for “purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world.”
Trump has rattled US allies with his banter about territorial expansion. Getty Images
The Danes seethed in response, insisting that Greenland is not for sale, and announced bolstered defense spending on the icy island, including two new dog-sled teams.
O’Brien scoffed at the Danes’ promised security upgrades to date.
“Greenland is a highway from the Arctic all the way to North America to the United States,” he said. “It’s strategically very important to the Arctic, which is going to be the critical battleground of the future.
“As the climate gets warmer, the Arctic is going to be a pathway that maybe even cuts down on the usage of the Panama Canal. The Russians and Chinese are all over the Arctic.”
The former national security adviser suggested that Greenland, which sits on the Northwest Passage, could emerge as a competitor to “the usage of the Panama Canal.”
Over recent weeks, Trump has publicly mused about the possibility of Canada becoming the 51st US state and America taking back the Panama Canal.
Greenland is expected to become an increasingly valuable island as maritime travel around it becomes more feasible with climate change. Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images
While he is said to be serious about Greenland and the canal, his comments about Canada were mainly just digs at its prime minister Justin Trudeau as part of an economic spat between the pair, sources have told The Post.
The US built the Panama Canal in the early 1900s to serve as a critical maritime conduit between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, sparing ships from having to traverse all the way around South America to travel between the two bodies of water.
In 1977, then-President Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaty and Neutrality Treaty relinquishing US control over the critical canal in exchange for assurances that it would remain neutral.
Both Trump and O’Brien have groused about growing fines that US ships have to pay at the canal as well as fears about China’s increasing influence at the critical nexus point.
“Generally, we love the Panamanians. They’re good people. They’re friends of America. But they gave the ports on both ends of the canal to the Chinese,” O’Brien said, referring to Hong Kong-based ownership of those two ports.
“They can’t charge exorbitant prices to American taxpayers ultimately, and consumers, and they can’t let the Chinese have access to both ends of the canal and run the thing. That violates the neutrality provision of the Panama Canal treaty, under which [Panama] got the canal back,” he added.
“The Panamanians can get with the program, or we may have to take the canal back.”
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Publish date : 2024-12-29 05:36:00
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