Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) won’t let President Donald Trump’s failed idea of purchasing Greenland die.
In a New York Times op-ed Monday, the GOP senator reiterated his arguments on why he finds the idea of the U.S. buying Greenland — which he took credit for during a speaking engagement in Little Rock, Arkansas last week — to be a “no-brainer.”
Citing the purchase of Greenland as an economically beneficial move for the U.S. and the semi-autonomous Danish territory itself, Cotton defended the President for being “crazy like a fox” when “his critics predictably derided him as crazy.”
Cotton doubled down on his assertion that he met with the Danish ambassador last year to discuss the possibility of purchasing Greenland and brought up the history of the Truman administration’s effort to acquire Greenland in 1946 due to how the island was “indispensable to the safety of the United States” in confronting the growing Soviet threat.
Cotton also echoed his remarks last week in mentioning that in 2018 the Chinese government tried to convince the local government of Greenland to let it build three military bases there — but that the Trump administration and some in Congress convinced Denmark to block the deal at the last minute.
Cotton argued that “despite Greenland’s long-term potential, a lack of infrastructure and financing still hamstring the island’s economy today” that the U.S. could step in to “invest substantially in its future.”
“The transfer of Greenland’s sovereignty would alleviate a significant financial burden on the Danish people while expanding opportunities for Greenlanders,” Cotton said. “Just look at what American sovereignty has meant to Alaskans compared with conditions in Siberia under Russian control.”
Read Cotton’s op-ed in the New York Times here.
