Former Trump National Security Adviser Backs Trump’s Remarks on Greenland, Panama Canal

National security adviser Robert O'Brien attends a briefing on Enhanced Narcotics Operations at the U.S. Southern Command in Doral, Fla., on July 10, 2020. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Robert O'Brien, national security adviser during the first Trump administration, said that the United States could buy Greenland and make it “become part Alaska,” if Denmark cannot defend the autonomous Danish territory.

In an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” O’Brien voiced his support for President-elect Donald Trump’s recent suggestion that the United States take control and ownership of Greenland “for national security purposes.”

Describing Greenland as a “highway from the Arctic all the way to North America, to the United States,” O’Brien noted that “the Russians and Chinese are all over the Arctic.”

“Denmark is now on the front lines of the war against Russia and China. They’re like the Baltic states. They’re like Poland because of their vast territory in Greenland. And so they have got to defend Greenland,” O’Brien said. “And if they can’t defend it, we’re going to have to, and we’re not going to do it for free.”

Greenland is the world’s largest island but has a population of only about 57,000. While Greenland enjoys self-governance in some areas, including judicial affairs, utilization of natural resources, and policing, its foreign and security interests are in the hands of the Danish government—as stipulated by the Danish Constitution.

The former Danish colony, located on the shortest route from Europe and Russia to America, is strategically important to the U.S. military. It is home to the Pituffik Space Base, which hosts an Upgraded Early Warning Radar weapon system to detect and track intercontinental ballistic missile launches.

O’Brien suggested that Denmark deploy frigates, air wings, missiles, and infantry to defend Greenland, adding that it should do what Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are doing in Eastern Europe.

“Or they can pay us to do it and we will do it,” O’Brien said. “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.”

Hours after Trump’s comments, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced a major increase in Greenland’s military defense spending, which would include new inspection ships, drones, dog sled teams, upgraded Arctic Command staffing, and an F-35-capable airport upgrade.

Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute Egede has dismissed any ideas that Greenland is for sale.

“Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom,” Egede said in a statement on Dec. 23.

In November, Michael Sfraga, U.S. ambassador-at-large for Arctic affairs, warned of growing cooperation between Russia and China. Several months earlier, the Pentagon issued a new Arctic plan for countering the two countries’ partnership.

During the Fox interview, O’Brien also defended Trump’s recent suggestion that the United States take back control of the Panama Canal. Trump criticized Panama for charging “exorbitant prices and rates of passage” for U.S. naval and commercial vessels passing through the canal, while also expressing concerns about the Chinese communist regime’s growing influence over the waterway.

“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.

Panama has handed operations of the Balboa port on the Pacific side and the Cristóbal port at the Atlantic entrance of the canal to Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports PPC.

“They cannot charge exorbitant prices to American taxpayers ultimately, and consumers, and they cannot let the Chinese have access to both ends of the canal and run the thing,” O’Brien said. “The Panamanians can get with the program, or we may have to take the canal back.”