House Speaker Mike Johnson told The Independent that “nobody” is talking about military action in Greenland despite the fact that President Donald Trump’s administration has floated the possibility.
Johnson spoke to reporters on Wednesday during his weekly press conference when The Independent asked if Congress would need to authorize military action in Venezuela.
“We are not at war with Greenland,” Johnson said. “We have no intention of being at war, we have no reason to be at war with Greenland.”
Johnson said that there are “geopolitical and strategic importance” of Greenland. Trump has long had a fixation on Greenland going back to 2019 when his administration discussed purchasing the territory.
“They’re talking about diplomatic channels for this, okay?” Johnson said. Johnson added that Trump had appointed Jeff Landry, the Republican governor of Johnson’s homestate of Louisiana, to be Trump’s envoy to Greenland.
“There’s a lot of thoughtful discussion to be had there, and that’s what we expect is going to happen,” he said. “. So all this stuff about military action and all that, I don’t think it’s, I don’t even think that’s a possibility. I don’t think anybody’s seriously considering that. And in the Congress, we’re certainly not.”
On Monday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller spoke openly about the United States using military force to take Greenland. Miller told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “nobody is going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.”
The White House also repeated this stance.
“The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the US military is always an option at the Commander-in-Chief’s disposal,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.
But Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who briefed the Senate on Wednesday, attempted to clarify the remarks.
“If the president identifies a threat to the national security of the United States, every president retains the option to address it through military means,” he said.
The questions surrounding Greenland, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, once again bubbled up after Trump ordered military strikes in Venezuela that led to the arrest of its president Nicolás Maduro.
But leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement this week saying that Greenland “belongs to its people.” The sextet’s statement came after Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that taking Greenland would signify the end of NATO.
