‘Uneasy’ Europe warns Trump over Greenland ambitions

BERLIN: European leaders on Wednesday warned Donald Trump against threatening “sovereign borders” after the US President-elect refused to rule out military action to take Greenland.

Germany´s Olaf Scholz said Trump´s comments had sparked “notable incomprehension” among EU leaders the chancellor had spoken with.

Trump has designs on the mineral- and oil-rich Arctic island, an autonomous territory of European Union member Denmark that itself has eyes on independence.

He set off new alarm bells on Tuesday at a news conference when he refused to rule out military intervention over the Panama Canal and Greenland, both of which he has said he wants the United States to control.

“We need Greenland for national security purposes,” he declared.

Trump also labelled the US-Canada border an “artificially drawn line” and promised to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”.

In Berlin, Scholz convened a press conference at short notice and stressed that the “inviolability of borders is a fundamental principle of international law”.

In a later tweet in English, Scholz reiterated Berlin´s position that “borders must not be moved by force” and that Trump´s latest outburst had cause “uneasiness” among European governments.

Referring indirectly to Russia´s invasion of Ukraine, Scholz said that the principle of sovereign borders “applies to every country, whether in the East or the West”.