Is there a deal between the U.S., Denmark and Greenland? Mary Louise Kelly and the staff on NPR’s nationwide safety podcast break it down.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
From NPR Information, that is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I am Juana Summers.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
And I am Mary Louise Kelly, with a query that has dominated the week each right here and throughout the globe – do we all know what’s taking place with Greenland? For weeks, President Trump has made plain he needs america to personal the Arctic island. He threatened army motion. He additionally threatened tariffs on U.S. allies, all to get his method. President Trump seems to have backed off these threats for now. By the tip of the day yesterday, talking from the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland, President Trump mentioned he had reached a framework for a deal on Greenland. What’s it, and the way precisely was this deal reached? Questions I put to Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and reporter Willem Marx on NPR’s weekly nationwide safety podcast, Sources & Strategies.
(SOUNDBITE OF EMANUEL KALLINS AND STEPHEN TELLER’S “PLUNGED INTO CRISIS”)
KELLY: So, Willem, what will we learn about this deal, this framework of a deal?
WILLEM MARX, BYLINE: I will disappoint you, Mary Louise. We do not know loads for certain by way of confirmed info from public sources.
KELLY: The U.S. doesn’t personal Greenland that we all know of at this hour?
MARX: Not but. Not but. There could also be conversations about that down the street. It isn’t clear. It looks like there have been these very, very key discussions between President Trump and a person known as Mark Rutte, who’s the secretary normal of the North Atlantic Treaty group – NATO. He is the previous Dutch prime minister. I’ve a Dutch passport. I’ve recognized the man for years. He is very charming, very glib and really astute politically. He stayed on prime of a coalition within the Netherlands for a very long time, and people abilities have been dropped at bear, not for the primary time, with President Trump this week.
The dialogue appear to have unlocked a number of the U.S. president’s issues concerning the function that Greenland would play in Arctic safety. And Rutte, on behalf of NATO at the very least, appears to have made some kind of assurances about safety efforts, doubtlessly safety expenditure and safety entry for the U.S. in that North Atlantic huge island, as Greenland is.
KELLY: So Rutte has someway managed to again us up from the precipice for now. Now we have not seen the tip of NATO – the alliance he leads – this week. However, I imply, I am going to level out the plain, which is that NATO will not be Greenland, NATO will not be Denmark, and Greenland is a part of Denmark. Had been Danish officers concerned in these conversations? Are they on board with no matter has been agreed?
MARX: That may be a very delicate query. There was nobody from Denmark or their delegation within the room with Rutte and Trump. The Danish have made very clear that Rutte doesn’t converse on behalf of them, although he speaks on behalf of an alliance of which they’re members. In truth, you understand, we have heard from the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, since this announcement that they cannot negotiate on their sovereignty.
And in reality, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has been assembly with the British prime minister within the U.Ok., presumably for conversations about this beautiful completely. Very grateful that the U.Ok. and others stood with Denmark over the past couple of weeks after we heard these preliminary threats from President Trump, but it surely’s fairly clear from what we have heard each from Danish officers and Greenlandic officers over the previous few hours that basically they have not been that carefully concerned in any of those conversations, however they look ahead to having additional conversations with the U.S. aspect within the days and weeks to return.
KELLY: Tom Bowman, what are you listening to from sources right here within the States?
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Properly, so far as this so-called framework, I talked to a European official, and he mentioned one of many issues they’re taking a look at is offering the U.S. with one other U.S. army base or bases in Greenland. After all, they’ve one there now that does early warning and likewise operates satellites. And Trump, importantly, talked about the Golden Dome, his missile protection system. So it is potential that this extra base or one other – additional bases could possibly be used for Golden Dome. You might have interceptor missiles there, or some high-tech gear and so forth and so forth.
Now, there are stories that – effectively, proper now, on the present base there, it flies the Danish flag. It is -Denmark has sovereignty over it.
KELLY: OK.
BOWMAN: The stories of what the U.S. needs is, if we won’t have all of Greenland, simply give us a bit of piece so we will put this base or different bases there.
KELLY: So there’s a U.S. flag…
BOWMAN: Appropriate.
KELLY: …Flying someplace over Greenland.
BOWMAN: And as Willem identified, the Danish prime minister, Frederiksen, mentioned sovereignty is non-negotiable. It isn’t going to occur. And once more, the individuals all of us discuss with say, what’s the way forward for NATO? Is the U.S. going to stroll away from NATO or are we on this on our personal? I feel these are the intense questions, I feel.
KELLY: And you do not really feel like we bought a solution to that this week?
BOWMAN: I do not assume we bought a solution to that.
KELLY: Not a definitive one.
BOWMAN: No.
KELLY: That is NPR’s Tom Bowman and reporter Willem Marx in Davos, talking with me on Sources & Strategies, NPR’s weekly nationwide safety podcast. You’ll be able to hear extra of our dialog wherever you get your podcasts.
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