Marco Rubio says Trump's plan to buy Greenland 'is not a joke'

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that it is "not a joke" that President Donald Trump would like to purchase the Danish island territory of Greenland. The president has signaled several times that he would like to see the island come under US control for security and economic purposes.

Rubio made the comments in an interview with Megyn Kelly on Thursday when she asked him about the subject. "This is not a joke, like, what he’s saying is pretty accurate," Rubio said. "People have been talking about it for years. This is not about acquiring land for the purpose of acquiring land. This is in our national interest, and it needs to be solved. President Trump’s put out there what he intends to do, which is to purchase it.”

Megyn Kelly asked about the prospect of Trump using economic or military coercion in order to obtain the land, which Trump suggested during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago earlier in January. At the time, Trump told reporters that he would not rule out either military or economic pressures in order to obtain Greenland as well as the Panama Canal.

Rubio emphasized that Trump would like to buy the land and added that Trump is a "businessman who is involved in politics" and that during a negotiation would not take any leverage point off the table at the beginning of a negotiation. "That's a tactic that's used all the time in business; it's being applied to foreign policy and I think to great effect in the first term."

Rubio pointed to the success of the Abraham Accords as an example of Trump using leverage to get wins in a foreign policy negotiation as well as the ceasefire deal with Israel and Hamas as another point.

According to The Hill, Rubio focused on the possibility of China gaining a foothold in the Arctic near Greenland if the United States sits back. He said it is "realistic" to say that China could "install facilities that give them access to the Arctic with the cover of a Chinese company, but that in reality, to serve a dual purpose, that in a moment of conflict, they could send naval vessels to that facility and operate from there.”

Rubio said that in four years it will be likely that the US will have a stronger presence in the Panama Canal as well as Greenland to secure the national security interests of the United States.