By Gloria Ogbonna
During this week’s broadcast of Fox News Sunday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz laid out the Trump administration’s strategic rationale for its interest in Greenland, arguing that growing threats from Russia and China in the Arctic leave the United States with little room for delay or complacency.
Waltz emphasized that President Donald Trump’s approach to Greenland is rooted in forward defense—acting before adversaries gain irreversible advantages near U.S. territory. According to Waltz, Trump is unwilling to “wait” until hostile powers are effectively on America’s doorstep before taking action.
From a broader NATO perspective, Waltz pointed to what he described as a dramatic turnaround in alliance burden-sharing since Trump first took office. “Look at where NATO was at the beginning of President Trump’s first term,” Waltz said.
“Less than seven countries were contributing even the bare minimum. Now, not only is everyone meeting that threshold, but a number of allies are moving toward double that, approaching five percent of their GDP.”
Waltz credited Trump’s tough, often controversial stance with forcing long-overdue changes within NATO. “NATO is far better off because of some of the tough love from President Trump,” he said, pushing back against the idea that the Arctic is a low-risk or distant concern. “I have to respectfully reject this notion that there aren’t imminent threats in the Arctic.”
According to Waltz, the Arctic is rapidly becoming a central theater in great-power competition. He warned that Russia is actively modernizing its nuclear forces, including testing nuclear-powered cruise missiles specifically designed to evade U.S. radar systems. At the same time, China is dramatically expanding its nuclear capabilities.
“China is tripling the size of its nuclear arsenal,” Waltz said. “And all of those assets all of those missiles would fly over the Arctic if there were ever an attack on the United States.”
Because of this reality, Waltz argued, Trump is focused on building layered defenses rather than reacting after the fact.
“President Trump isn’t going to wait until they’re right there on our doorstep,” he said. “That’s why he’s putting in the Iron Dome. We have to have the latitude to do that.”
Waltz also highlighted the growing strategic importance of Arctic shipping lanes as polar ice recedes. Russia, he noted, already operates a fleet of roughly 60 icebreakers, while China is rapidly expanding its own capabilities despite not being an Arctic nation.
“What has President Trump done?” Waltz asked. “He’s commissioned, with Finland, a plan to get a dozen American icebreakers up there.” By contrast, he pointed out, Denmark and Canada despite their geographic proximity and responsibilities have no heavy icebreakers at all. “How many heavy icebreakers from Denmark or from Canada? Zero. Zero.”
Turning to NATO obligations, Waltz referenced Article Three of the NATO treaty, which requires each member nation to maintain the capacity to defend its own territory. He argued that Denmark, while a strong ally in many respects, has failed to meet that responsibility when it comes to Greenland.
“The reality is Denmark has ignored Greenland from a defense standpoint,” Waltz said. “And they’ve also ignored the Greenlandic native Inuit people.”
To underscore his point, Waltz contrasted Greenland’s situation with that of Alaska. He noted that Alaska Natives benefit from a sovereign wealth fund worth more than $80 billion, which helps support health care, infrastructure, and long-term economic stability.
“In Greenland,” Waltz said, “if you get a cancer diagnosis right now, it’s darn near a death sentence. Denmark has not invested the way it should have over the years.”
He also pointed to historical abuses, citing scandals from the 1970s in which Greenlandic women were sterilized without proper consent policies he described as a way to reduce Denmark’s long-term financial obligations to the population.
“So let’s get all the facts on the table,” Waltz concluded. “President Trump is going to do what it takes to defend the American people even when our allies are ignoring these glaring threats.”
Waltz’s remarks framed Greenland not as a symbolic or speculative interest, but as a critical component of U.S. national security in an era of renewed great-power rivalry, where inaction in the Arctic could carry global consequences.
Source Breitbart
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