GOP Acknowledges Climate Change to Justify Greenland Takeover

President-elect Donald Trump has recently revived his dream of expanding the United States through the purchase of Greenland.

While his wish might look unusual on paper, his former national security advisor Robert O’Brien said there were two main reasons for his obsession with the island— and one of them was based on climate change.

Speaking on Sunday Morning Futures, O’Brien envisioned a future in which the U.S. could cut down on using the Panama Canal “as the climate gets warmer.”

“Greenland is a highway from the Arctic all the way to North America, to the United States,” he said to guest host Jason Chaffetz on Fox News.

“It’s strategically very important to the Arctic which is going to be the critical battleground of the future because as the climate gets warmer, the Arctic is going to be a pathway that maybe cuts down on the usage of the Panama Canal.”

Critics seemed shocked by both the boldness of trying to acquire Greenland, and that O’Brien was willing to invoke climate change as a justification for doing so.

“Wait so they accept climate change as real to justify annexing sovereign nations?” one account wrote in response to O’Brien’s speech.

Alongside being a “critical battleground” against climate change, O’Brien said that Greenland was a literal battleground against Russia and China— and that it wouldn’t hurt if the U.S. fracked for some oil while defending the island.

“And the Russians and the Chinese are all over the Arctic. Now the Danes— the Kingdom of Denmark— owns Greenland. And they’ve got an obligation to defend Greenland, and so President Trump said ‘If you don’t defend Greenland, we’ll buy it and we’ll defend it, but we’re not going to defend it for free and let you not develop Greenland and not extract the minerals and oil and resources of Greenland...‘“ he said.

“Denmark is now on the frontlines 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’ve got to defend Greenland, and if they can’t defend it we’re going to have to and we’re not gonna do it for free.”

Despite Trump and O’Brien’s fighting words, it doesn’t seem Greenland itself is keen on becoming a non-contiguous U.S. state.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede last week shared a statement relaying very strongly his feelings about the idea.

“Greenland is ours,” he said. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”