There were already fears for the US President’s health – but while ranting about Greenland he made another embarrassing slip-up
Donald Trump made a telling verbal slip that will spark further concerns about his fitness to serve as President.
There were already fears for the US President’s health as he took to the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He appeared unsteady on his feet, slurring his words and struggling to stay awake through the hour-long speech.
But while ranting about Greenland, which he demanded Denmark hand over to the US, he made another embarrassing slip-up. He repeatedly referred to the territory not as Greenland, but as Iceland.
He said: “Our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland, so Iceland has already cost us a lot of money.”
In another part of the speech, he said of NATO: “Until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me daddy.” In both cases, he was referring to Greenland.
During his speech, the US President claimed America “won World War II”, telling a silent room of the globe’s economic and political elites they would “all be speaking German and a little Japanese, perhaps” if it weren’t for the US. “Every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend its own territory,” he said. “But the reality is that no nation has the ability to defend Greenland apart from the United States.”
Trump tried to focus on his efforts to tame inflation and spur the economy back home. But his appearance at the gathering of global elites focused more on his gripes with other countries. He said repeatedly that the US was in the best position to control Greenland and derided most of Europe for opposing the idea. “This enormous unsecured island is actually part of North America,” Trump said. “That’s our territory.”
He went on to claim the evidence for this was in World War II, when the US protected Greenland from the Nazis after Denmark fell. He said: “The United States was compelled to send our own forces to hold Greenland. And hold it we did at great expense.”
Describing Greenland as a “big piece of ice” that couldn’t really be called an island, he said: “After the war, which we won, we won it big – if it weren’t for us you’d all be speaking German and a little Japanese perhaps. After the war we gave Greenland back to Denmark, how stupid were we to do that? But we gave it back and how ungrateful are they now?”
He went on to issue veiled hints that he could still use America’s military might if Denmark refused his demands.
“We never ask for anything and we never got anything, we probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force,” he said. “We would be frankly unstoppable, but I won’t do that. That’s probably the biggest statement I made. Because people thought I would use force. I don’t want to use force. I don’t have to use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland, which we already had it as a trustee, but respectfully returned it after we defeated the Germans, the Japanese, the Italians and others in World War II. We gave it back to them. We were a powerful force then and we’re a much more powerful force now.”
He went on to make a chilling threat: “So we want a piece of ice for world protection. And they won’t give it. We’ve never asked for anything else, and we could have kept that piece of land and we didn’t. So they have a choice. You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember.”