The U.S. is increasing its espionage in Greenland as part of Donald Trump\u2019s campaign to take control of the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Donald Trump\u2019s quest to conquer Greenland is becoming increasingly serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The intelligence community directed intelligence agency chiefs to conduct a spy campaign on the Denmark-controlled island territory last week, issuing a \u201ccollection emphasis message\u201d for information pertaining to Greenland\u2019s independence movement, as well as an examination of local attitudes regarding \u201cAmerican resource extraction,\u201d reported The Wall Street Journal. It also tasked agencies to identify individuals living in Greenland and Denmark who support the Trump administration\u2019s goals for the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The directive came from several high-ranking officials under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, according to the paper, but Gabbard was not happy to hear that the news of the initiative had gotten out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors who seek to undermine the President by politicizing and leaking classified information,\u201d Gabbard told the Journal in a statement. \u201cThey are breaking the law and undermining our nation\u2019s security and democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Greenland order, which went out to multiple departments including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency, is the first tangible step the Trump administration has made to satiate the president\u2019s desire to own the self-governing island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One intelligence official explained to the Journal that because collection resources are \u201cinherently limited,\u201d they are typically used for \u201cperceived threats, not allied countries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The order is just another reminder that American voters should take Donald Trump at his word. In an interview with NBC News that aired Sunday, Trump refused to rule out the possibility of taking Greenland by force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t rule it out,\u201d the president said. \u201cI don\u2019t say I\u2019m going to do it, but I don\u2019t rule out anything. No, not there. We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we\u2019ll take care of, and we\u2019ll cherish them, and all of that. But we need that for international security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House National Security Council has met \u201cseveral times\u201d to make Trump\u2019s desires for the arctic island a reality, The New York Times reported in early April. At the time, a U.S. official claimed the council had sent \u201cspecific instructions to multiple arms of the government.\u201d But those instructions never specified the use of military force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another effort by the Trump administration to win over Greenland involves using federal dollars on advertising and social media campaigns with hopes of persuading Greenland\u2019s 57,000 residents to basically annex themselves for America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Greenlanders have not taken kindly to Trump and his associates\u2019 sudden interest in acquiring their land. After months of heavy pressure from the Trump family, including an embarrassing stunt in which Donald Trump Jr. reportedly convinced homeless residents to wear MAGA merchandise in exchange for food, and an effort in the U.S. Congress to rename the territory \u201cRed, White, and Blueland,\u201d Greenland\u2019s various political parties set aside their differences in March to unite under a singular goal: opposing U.S. aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be Americans. No, we don\u2019t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future,\u201d Demokraatit Party leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen told Sky News the night his party won a decisive majority in Parliament, making him prime minister. \u201cAnd we want to build our own country by ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A late-January poll by pollster Verian found that 85 percent of Greenland\u2019s residents do not want to become part of the United States. Just 6 percent were in favor of the switch, while 8 percent were undecided, according to The Guardian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That disinterest became more apparent in late March, when second lady Usha Vance\u2019s trip around Greenland was gutted and canceled after American representatives were spotted walking around Nuuk, the island\u2019s capital, failing to find residents who would be interested in a visit from the vice president\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But none of that has squashed Trump\u2019s interest. In a meeting in March with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump claimed that the U.S. needs Greenland \u201cfor international security,\u201d reasoning that the \u201cwhole area is becoming very important\u201d because there are \u201cships all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo, we\u2019re going to have to make a deal on that, and Denmark is not able to do that, and you know, Denmark is very far away, and really has nothing to do. What happened? A boat landed there 200 years ago or something and they say they have rights to it, I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true, I don\u2019t think it is, actually,\u201d the apparent anti-colonialist activist said at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an address to Congress in March, Trump clarified his intention: \u201cOne way or the other, we\u2019re going to get it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. is increasing its espionage in Greenland as part of Donald Trump\u2019s campaign to take control of the island. Donald Trump\u2019s quest to conquer Greenland is becoming increasingly serious. The intelligence community directed intelligence agency chiefs to conduct a spy campaign on the Denmark-controlled island territory last week, issuing a \u201ccollection emphasis message\u201d for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[144,143],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-greenland","tag-us-spying"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}