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'Whether they like it or not': Trump gives ominous warning on possible occupation of Greenland
Donald Trump offered an ominous warning in his ongoing campaign to acquire Greenland. During his meeting with oil and gas executives today, the president said “we are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not”.
His justification? “If we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor,” Trump said.
“So we’re going to be doing something with Greenland, either the nice way or the more difficult way.”
Trump repeated his frequent refrain that he “saved” Nato, while insisting that he still supports the alliance.
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have a Nato right now,” the president said. “But we’re not going to allow Russia or China to occupy Greenland, and that’s what’s going to happen if we don’t.”
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Asked why he had to “own” Greenland when the US already has military bases there, Trump said:
Because when we own it, we defend it. You don’t defend leases in the same way. We have to own it.
He later added:
You don’t defend ownership, you don’t defend leases. And we’ll have to defend Greenland. If we don’t do it, China or Russia will.
He added that he gets on very well with Russia and China, although he is “very disappointed” with Vladimir Putin.
Trump tells Iran: 'You'd better not start shooting, because we'll start shooting too'
Responding to a completely unrelated question, Trump elaborated on his threats to the Iranian regime. He said “God bless” the protesters and that he hoped that they would be safe, before adding:
And again, I tell the Iranian leaders: You’d better not start shooting, because we’ll start shooting too.
Asked if the FBI should be sharing evidence with state officials in Minnesota (on Wednesday’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE officer), Trump said of officials in Minneapolis and Minnesota: “Well, normally I would but they’re crooked officials.”
He went on to repeat his usual attacks on the state’s Democratic governor Tim Walz and its Somali community.
Responding to a follow-up question on his upcoming meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado next week, Trump said “she might be involved in some aspect” of running the country.
As my colleague William Christou reported earlier, Trump already threatened today to intervene in Iran if its government kills demonstrators, prompting warnings from senior Iranian officials that any American interference would cross a “red line”.
In a post on Truth Social earlier, Trump said that if Iran were to shoot and kill protesters, the US would “come to their rescue”. He added: “We are locked and loaded, and ready to go,” without explaining what that might mean in practice.
The protests in Iran, the largest since the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in 2022, are in their sixth day, having been triggered by an unprecedented decline in the value of the national currency on Sunday.
Here’s William’s full report:
Trump says US will 'hit Iran very hard where it hurts' if regime cracks down on protesters
Donald Trump said that Iran was in “big trouble” and that his administration is “watching the situation very carefully”.
He went on to tell reporters at the White House:
If they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved. We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts.
He clarified that he didn’t mean boots on the ground, but repeated the US would be “hitting them very, very hard where it hurts”.
'Whether they like it or not': Trump gives ominous warning on possible occupation of Greenland
Donald Trump offered an ominous warning in his ongoing campaign to acquire Greenland. During his meeting with oil and gas executives today, the president said “we are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not”.
His justification? “If we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor,” Trump said.
“So we’re going to be doing something with Greenland, either the nice way or the more difficult way.”
Trump repeated his frequent refrain that he “saved” Nato, while insisting that he still supports the alliance.
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have a Nato right now,” the president said. “But we’re not going to allow Russia or China to occupy Greenland, and that’s what’s going to happen if we don’t.”
When asked why federal officials are not working with local authorities on the investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, Trump said that Minnesota officials were “crooked”.
He went on to call Tim Walz, the state’s Democratic governor, “incompetent”.
“I mean, he’s a stupid person,” Trump said.
This comes as the Minnesota bureau of criminal apprehension (BCA) said that the FBI took control of the ongoing investigation, denying BCA access to case materials.
Trump confirms meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader Machado next week
At a meeting with oil and gas executives today, Donald Trump said that he plans to meet with the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, María Corina Machado, next week.
“She’s going to come in and pay her regards to our country,” Trump said. “And she’s coming in sometime next week, I think Tuesday or Wednesday.”
The president added that the relationship with Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, was “very good” at the moment.
Trump seems to suggest that Renee Nicole Good was a 'high-level agitator'
Asked by a Fox News correspondent today to explain the claim, by vice-president JD Vance, that Renee Good was “part of a broad left-wing network,” the president seemed to accuse the 37-year-old woman killed by and ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday – of being a “high-level agitator”.
Trump didn’t provide any evidence for his claim, but insisted that a woman heard screaming the word “shame!” in video of the incident recorded by a witness, must have been “a paid agitator” and “professional troublemaker”.
However, the woman who was screaming “shame” in the video was not Good, but another bystander who was behind the witness who filmed the encounter in the video Trump appeared to be referring to. Trump appeared to incorrectly accuse Good of having been the person screaming, and asserted, without evidence and contrary to experience, that only a paid agitator would scream at ICE agents.
“She was so loud and so crazy and just not normal,” the president said. “So I guess you could say professional, but I didn’t think she did a very good job. You have agitators, and we will always be protecting ICE.”
David Smith
Reporting from the East Room
Trump said that together the US and Venezuela have 55% of world’s oil reserves.
“Drill, baby, drill was my campaign,” he added.
Trump got Vance, Rubio and a few oil executives to weigh in, all sounding wildly optimistic and upbeat. The president commented: “If we didn’t do this, Russia or China would have done it … This is sort of a nextdoor neighbor.” But he added that China and Russia were welcome to buy US controlled oil: “We are open for business.”
Stephen Miller is sitting under a portrait of Martha Washington and, more surprisingly, Tucker Carlson is sitting in the background.
Energy secretary Chris Wright noted that while the US may have less oil underground than Venezuela, “we have 20 times the production” of the country.
Sitting alongside the president in today’s meeting is vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio, energy secretary Chris Wright, and secretary of the interior Doug Burgum.
Vance praised his boss in his remarks today. Noting that previous Republican and Democratic administration “would lose hundreds or thousands of American lives” by getting into “endless quagmires”. Trump, he claimed, “empowered” the American military to “stop the flow of drugs” into the US, and “control one of the great energy reserves” in the world.
“He [Trump] did it without losing a single American life in the process,” the vice-president added.
The president adds that oil companies who want access to Venezuela’s reserves will have to “spend at least $100bn to rebuild the capacity and the infrastructure” in the country.
“Venezuela has also agreed that the United States will immediately begin refining and selling up to 50m barrels of Venezuelan crude oil,” Trump said.
In his remarks today, the president said that “some” of the money generated from Venezuela’s oil production will go to the country itself, and “some will go to the oil companies”.
Trump confirms that Venezuela has turned over 30m barrels of oil.
“It’s about $4bn worth,” he said. “It’s on our way to it’s on its way to the United States right now. And we want to thank Venezuela for that.”
The president added that the administration will decide which oil and gas companies will have access to Venezuelan production.
“One of the reasons you couldn’t go in … you had no security, but now you have total security,” Trump told the executives in the East Room today. “You’re dealing with us directly. You’re not dealing with Venezuela at all. We don’t want you to deal with Venezuela.”
Trump says latest seized oil tanker is on its way back to Venezuela
The president just announced on Truth Social that the fifth seized oil tanker by the US Coast Guard, known as the Olina, is “on its way back to Venezuela”.
He added that the intercepted oil “will be sold through the GREAT Energy Deal, which we have created for such sales”.
We’re getting more pictures from the demonstrations against the increase in federal law and immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, just two days after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good.
In a short while we’ll bring you the latest from Donald Trump’s meeting with top US oil executives at the White House, which just opened up to the press.
