President Donald Trump is now claiming that one reason he is pushing to acquire Greenland is that he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, according to a message he sent to Norway’s prime minister over the weekend.
Jonas Gahr Store, Norway’s leader, received the text message Sunday, three European officials familiar with the matter said Monday.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” according to the message, which was first published by PBS.
In the message, Trump also questioned Denmark’s claim to Greenland, saying, “There are no written documents,” and adding, “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you!”
Greenland has been part of the Danish Kingdom for more than 300 years, and world leaders have condemned Trump’s insistence that the United States take over the territory, a giant icebound island in the Arctic region.
Store said in a statement that Trump’s text message was a response to a message Store sent to Trump on Sunday asking to speak to him about the crisis over Greenland and about Trump’s threat of using tariffs to pressure Denmark into selling Greenland to the United States, which Denmark has refused to do.
“As regards the Nobel Peace Prize, I have on several occasions clearly explained to Trump what is well known, namely that it is an independent Nobel Committee, and not the Norwegian government, that awards the prize,” Store said.
Trump has repeatedly challenged Denmark’s claims to Greenland, but in decades-old agreements that the United States has signed with Denmark, the United States has explicitly recognized that Greenland is part of the Danish Kingdom.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
