President Donald J. Trump renewed his push for the United States to take over Greenland after the successful military operation to arrest Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro over the weekend.
Showing that the Trump administration means business in the Western Hemisphere, U.S. forces captured the Latin American strongman and his wife in a daring raid in Caracas and brought him to New York City, where he will stand trial for his crimes.
On Sunday, flush with victory after his bold action against Maduro, Trump suggested that taking control of the sparsely populated North Atlantic country of great strategic importance could be on the table.
.@POTUS: “We need Greenland from a national security situation. It’s so strategic. Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.” pic.twitter.com/suxvDQfmUm
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 5, 2026
“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place,” the leader of the free world told reporters onboard Air Force One as he headed back to Washington.
“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you,” Trump said of the world’s largest island, which is under Danish control.
“You know what Denmark did recently to boost up security in Greenland? They added one more dog sled; it’s true, they thought that was a great move,” he added.
“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security,” Trump emphasized. “The European Union needs us to have it, and they know it.”
“We do need Greenland, absolutely,” Trump told The Atlantic in an interview that was published on Jan. 4. “We need it for defense.”
Under Trump’s leadership, the Monroe Doctrine has once again become a centerpiece of American foreign policy, with restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” being a key tenet in the administration’s National Security Strategy that was released last month.
“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere,” the document read.
“This ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests,” the administration stated.
Trump has rebranded the 19th-century policy, which is named after former President James Monroe, as the “Donroe Doctrine.”
In remarks after Maduro’s capture, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
BREAKING: Rubio has said that “Cuba is a huge problem,” and possibly next. pic.twitter.com/Fskt4kZ8lj
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) January 4, 2026
“I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps are gonna be and our policies are gonna be right now in this regard,” the nation’s top diplomat told host Kristen Welker on Sunday’s edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“But I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime, who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro,” Rubio added.
Over the weekend, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, posted an image showing a map of Greenland covered with a United States flag to X with the comment “SOON.”
SOON pic.twitter.com/XU6VmZxph3
— Katie Miller (@KatieMiller) January 3, 2026
“I have to say this very directly to the United States,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a Sunday statement on social media. “It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the United States needing to take over Greenland. The U.S. has no right to annex one of the three countries in the Danish Kingdom.”
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