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President Donald Trump has been accused of making an 'absurd and embarrassing' comment about Denmark while hinting at his intention to acquire Greenland.
The POTUS has been long toying with the idea of merging Canada into the US as its 51st State, and hinted that another territory still sits firmly on his list.
During a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on Thursday (March 13), Trump stated he would like to see Greenland become a part of the US for security reasons, after having made similar comments during his first term in 2019.
He said: "Well, I think it’ll happen. And I’m just thinking I didn’t give it much thought before, but I’m sitting with a man that could be very instrumental.
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"You know, Mark, we need that for international security, not just security - international."
"That whole area is becoming very important," he continued, "and for a lot of reasons."
"The routes are very direct to Asia, to Russia, and you have ships all over the place and we have to have protection, so we're gong to have to make a deal on that."
While Rutte shrugged the suggestion off, saying: "I don't want to drag NATO into that," the President also appeared to make a somewhat embarrassing blunder over the island's complex history.
While geographically it sits closer to Canada than Europe, the semi-autonomous territory is politically and culturally governed by the Kingdom of Denmark.
However, Trump seemed unaware of this fact when speaking about its potential annexation and his comments about Denmark's rights to the territory that hit a nerve.
"Denmark's very far away," Trump continued, "and really has nothing to do - what, a boat landed there 200 years ago or something and they say they have rights to it?
"I don't know if that's true. I don't think it is actually."
Reacting to the shocking statement, viewers raced to Twitter to call Trump's Greenland claims 'absurd and embarrassing.'
"Donald Trump says he doesn't think Denmark has rights to Greenland. They do. Donald Trump is a global embarrassment," wrote another.
According to History Extra, the question of who owns the world's largest island spans the ages, but the territory was formally incorporated into the Danish Kingdom as of 1953.
Since then, it gained home rule in 1979 and continues to enhance its autonomy and independence of the sovereign state, having passed several laws for the benefit of its own self-governance.
It has also been of major interest to the US since the Second World War due to its strategic position in the North Atlantic, which not only proved vital but highlighted the land's significance towards maintaining worldwide peace and security.
It once again became instrumental in the Cold War when the US leased the land from Denmark to build an air base in a strike back against the Soviet threat.
US forces still have a military base on Greenland with a bilateral defense partnership still in good stead between the NATO allies.
Trump has given several conflicting statements about Greenland joining the US for good, saying in January that he would not rule out full military intervention or, perhaps his favorite method, ramp up tariffs against Denmark to bend to the demand.
But then he told the people of Greenland in a Congress address: "If you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America.”