Denmark has poured scorn on Donald Trump’s reported plan to buy Greenland from the Scandinavian country.
“We are open for business, but we’re NOT for sale,“ said Denmark’s foreign minister Ane Lone Bagger, in a note to Reuters.
Mr Trump is due to visit Copenhagen in September and the Arctic will be on the agenda during meetings with prime minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland leader Kim Kielsen.
The US president has suggested purchasing the vast Arctic territory on numerous occasions with staff after hearing about its natural resources and geopolitical importance, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The notion of purchasing the autonomous Danish territory was laughed off by some of Mr Trump’s advisers as a joke but has been taken more seriously by others in the White House, two sources familiar with the situation said on Thursday.
But Danish politicians mocked the notion of selling Greenland, the world’s largest island.
“If he is truly contemplating this, then this is final proof, that he has gone mad,“ foreign affairs spokesman for the Danish People’s Party, Soren Espersen, told broadcaster DR.
“The thought of Denmark selling 50,000 citizens to the United States is completely ridiculous,“ he said.
Greenland, a self-ruling part of Denmark located between the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, is dependant on Danish economic support.
“I am sure a majority in Greenland believes it is better to have a relation to Denmark than the United States, in the long term,“ Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, Danish MP from Greenland’s second-largest party Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), told Reuters.
“My immediate thought is ‘No, thank you’,“ she said.
Ms Frederiksen was not available for comment. The US embassy in Copenhagen was also not immediately available for comment.
“Oh dear lord. As someone who loves Greenland, has been there nine times to every corner and loves the people, this is a complete and total catastrophe,“ former US ambassador to Denmark, Rufus Gifford, said in on Twitter.
Former prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen tweeted: “It has to be an April Fool’s joke. Totally out of season.“