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US President Donald Trump has linked his pursuit of Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize in a message to Norway’s prime minister.
Trump told Jonas Gahr Støre in a text message that “considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize . . . I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America”.
The US president added: “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”
Støre confirmed on Monday morning that he had received the message in reply to a text he had sent Trump protesting against the move to impose tariffs on Norway and other European countries for sending troops to Greenland. PBS News first reported the text.
The 2025 prize was awarded to María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, who gave the Nobel medal to Trump at the White House last week in “recognition for his unique commitment” to her country’s freedom.
In a campaign to secure the prize, he claimed to have ended eight wars since returning to the White House a year ago.
Norway has repeatedly told Trump that an independent committee — whose members are chosen by the country’s parliament — chooses the Nobel Peace Prize winner, not the government.
“We had an uphill struggle to convince China,” a Norwegian diplomat said about the decision to award the 2010 Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, after which Beijing took economic actions against the Norwegian government. “Now we have the same uphill struggle with Trump.”
On Monday, Trump told NBC News: “Norway totally controls it, despite what they say.”
In his message to Støre, he also repeated his claim that Denmark’s control of Greenland was questionable, despite several times being recognised by the US in treaties, including in the 1916-17 convention on selling the Danish West Indies.
Trump wrote: “Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.”
He added: “I have done more for Nato than any other person since its founding, and now, Nato should do something for the United States.”
Støre said on Monday that his message — on behalf of himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb — pointed at the need “to de-escalate the exchange of words, and requested a telephone call between Trump, Stubb and me during the day”.
PBS said it had received Trump’s message after it was forwarded to “multiple” European embassies in Washington.
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent on Monday downplayed the importance of the Nobel Prize to the president’s position. “It is a complete canard that the president would be doing this because of the Nobel Prize,” he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
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