Trump cancels Denmark trip over Greenland snub by Danish PM

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has cancelled his trip to Denmark and postponed his meeting with the Danish prime minister after she said that Greenland was not for sale.

Speaking on Sunday during a trip to Greenland, Mette Frederiksen called purchasing the island, a semiautonomous Danish territory, “an absurd discussion”.

In a tweet on Tuesday evening, the US president said that since the prime minster had “no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland”, he had decided to postpone their meeting.

“Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time,” he said.

By Tuesday night, the meeting was officially off. “At this time, the visit to Denmark is canceled,” Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, told a local newspaper.

The change of heart comes after Trump’s proposal to buy Greenland was widely written off as unfeasible and unwelcome. Local residents have called the idea “crazy” and “patronising”.

Frederiksen, who has been visiting the island to meet its premier, Kim Kielsen, told reporters on Sunday that Greenland could not be sold because it did not belong to Denmark.

“Greenland

Greenland is is not Danish.

Greenlandic. I persistently hope that this is not something that is seriously meant,” she said.

The idea has come up before: the US offered Denmark $100m to buy Greenland in 1946 after the idea of a land swap with Alaska was rejected.

The US later came to an agreement to maintain an airbase in northern Greenland, Thule air force base, that was originally designed as a refueling base for long-range bombers. During her trip to Greenland, the Danish prime minister said she hoped it was time to leave the joke behind.

“Thankfully, the time where you buy and sell other countries and populations is over. Let’s leave it there. Jokes aside, we will of course love to have an even closer strategic relationship with the United States,” she said.

Immediately after Sumedh Mannar disappeared, people on scene threw a life ring into the water, and Crater Lake hospitality staff took a small boat out to the area to help search, she said.

Park staff came to the area to help with the search, but choppy waters and poor visibility conditions made the search difficult.