Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Let's get more on President Trump's push for Greenland joining
Speaker 2: US now is Nicholas Burns, a former US ambassador to NATO.
Speaker 2: He's also a former US Ambassador to China and a
Speaker 2: professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. And Nicholas, there is
Speaker 2: no one else we'd want to talk with you about
Speaker 2: this subject because of your vast amount of experience with NATO.
Speaker 2: Specifically after this happened, after the latest pronouncements from the President,
Speaker 2: the Danish Prime Minister said an attack on Greenland would
Speaker 2: spell the end of the NATO alliance. Just how undertention
Speaker 2: and how at risk is this alliance at the moment.
Speaker 3: Well, certainly an attack by the United States against Denmark
Speaker 3: over Greenland would end NATO as we know it. It's
Speaker 3: been unthinkable since NATO was created in nineteen forty nine
Speaker 3: that the United States or any other NATO country would
Speaker 3: attack a fellow member. We've been busy trying to of
Speaker 3: course contain Soviet and now President Putin's power in Europe.
Speaker 3: That's the focal point of NATO. And to get back
Speaker 3: to what was said, Secretary Rubio said when he was
Speaker 3: asked yesterday in the context of Greenland, is force on
Speaker 3: the table? And he said, well, he didn't point to force,
Speaker 3: but he said the President reserves the right to use
Speaker 3: force if necessary. Caroline Levitt, the president spokesperson, said the
Speaker 3: follow the evening before force was on the table on Greenland. Now,
Speaker 3: I actually agree with your correspondent. I think the probability
Speaker 3: of an American attack on Greenland is not high. But
Speaker 3: the fact that the President and the Secretary of State
Speaker 3: and the spokesperson have all said it is on the table,
Speaker 3: you can imagine how that's gone down in Denmark and
Speaker 3: in Europe, and so I think the critical point is this,
Speaker 3: the United States does not need to invade Greenland or
Speaker 3: to even seek to purchase Greenland from Denmark to get
Speaker 3: what President Trump has said he wants to have. The
Speaker 3: Danish Prime Minister has said throughout this year that she
Speaker 3: welcomes a further, bigger American military presence on Greenland. They
Speaker 3: welcome the Danes American private investment or government investment in
Speaker 3: rare earth mining and mining for other critical materials, so
Speaker 3: we can get what we want without these really colossal threats,
Speaker 3: colossally ignorant threats against the NATO ally. We just have
Speaker 3: to treat that ally respectfully, and I think in that
Speaker 3: respect it is positive that Secretary of Rubio is going
Speaker 3: to meet the Danish Foreign Minister next week in Washington.
Speaker 3: Much better for them to discuss this privately than this
Speaker 3: continued war of words started by the administration.
Speaker 1: In Washington, Professor, we're also hearing and we reported yesterday
Speaker 1: that Danish and greenlandic officials will be meeting with Secretary
Speaker 1: Rubio next week as well. I am wondering, what do
Speaker 1: you think, I mean, with your vast experience in this
Speaker 1: this meeting, is this is this the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that gives comfort to NATO officials, Is that this is
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that gives comfort to the markets,
Speaker 1: or is it potential for more chaos ahead.
Speaker 3: I just can't imagine a decision by the President of
Speaker 3: the United States to invade Greenland and lee, in essence,
Speaker 3: you know, cause an active war against the NATO ally.
Speaker 3: So I do think that's low probability. And you know,
Speaker 3: the thing here is that Greenland is strategically important. If
Speaker 3: you think about Greenland's geographic position vis a vis the
Speaker 3: Russian Federation and where much of the Russian military asss Are,
Speaker 3: which is in the western part in Murmansk and other
Speaker 3: places of the Russian Federation think about China's ambitions as
Speaker 3: they call themselves a near Arctic power. The administration is right,
Speaker 3: as President Biden said as well, that Greenland is very
Speaker 3: important strategically. We're going to be much better positioned to
Speaker 3: get what we want and to build up American millilitary
Speaker 3: power in Greenland if we work through our ally Denmark
Speaker 3: and with the other northern members of the NATO Alliance.
Speaker 3: We are all like minded. We want to contain Russian power.
Speaker 3: We want to keep China out of this hemisphere strategically
Speaker 3: and prevent the Chinese from building up their power. And
Speaker 3: the best way to do that is not to dissolve
Speaker 3: NATO and break NATO apart by an American military invasion
Speaker 3: to go back to Greenland. What with the Danes establish
Speaker 3: a much stronger American military presence.
Speaker 2: What if what the President wants.
Speaker 4: I'm sure that he wants to maintain military dominance over
Speaker 4: certainly China and Russia as well, but what if he
Speaker 4: also wants to mine Greenland's natural resources and so that
Speaker 4: we can keep them for ourselves and that we do
Speaker 4: not have to share them with other NATO members. I mean,
Speaker 4: is that potentially why he wants Greenland so they can
Speaker 4: have the earth there.
Speaker 3: Well, the president hasn't been at least in my judgment,
Speaker 3: that's specific. So I don't want to put words in
Speaker 3: his mouth.
Speaker 4: But look, but he does seem to want the oil
Speaker 4: in Venezuela. That seems to be the oil seems to
Speaker 4: be at least partially a driver in Venezuela. And now
Speaker 4: we know, after he has arrested the illegitimate or not
Speaker 4: president of Venezuela, he has now said that they're going
Speaker 4: to give us fifty million barrels of oil.
Speaker 3: Well, the two situations are very different. Maduro was illegitimate.
Speaker 3: Venezuela is not a military ally of the United States.
Speaker 3: Denmark is. Denmark has been with US since the First
Speaker 3: World War, by the way, and the United States said
Speaker 3: during the First World War, and we repeated that when
Speaker 3: NATO was created, we respect Danish sovereignty in Greenland. The
Speaker 3: Danes have been there for more than three hundred years.
Speaker 3: That is not our property. So if anyone in the
Speaker 3: administration is thinking that the real reason for this is
Speaker 3: to mine rare earth and other minerals, and oil and
Speaker 3: gas in Greenland and take it all from ourselves. Well,
Speaker 3: that would be larceny, that would be highway robbery. It's
Speaker 3: unthinkable that the United States would want to live in
Speaker 3: a world where there are no rules and that, in fact,
Speaker 3: we try to exploit the resources of NATO members against
Speaker 3: their will. Now, this is a hypothetical conversation. I'm not
Speaker 3: saying you asked the question. I'm not saying that the
Speaker 3: Trump administration wants to do this. I can't believe that
Speaker 3: many members, if any at all, of the United States
Speaker 3: Senate would support that. So that's hypothetical. What's real. What's
Speaker 3: real is that we used to have seventeen military bases
Speaker 3: in Greenland and now we have one. So if we
Speaker 3: want to have additional military bases, that can happen with
Speaker 3: the assistance of Denmark, and that's that's by far the
Speaker 3: better route for the United States to take.
Speaker 1: Here, Ambassador, to go back to your point on the
Speaker 1: national security part here, right, So part of this is
Speaker 1: the Western Hemisphere national security strategy. The number of people
Speaker 1: we've talked to have discussed this around Greenland and Venezuela
Speaker 1: kind of in some ways being connected. But you did
Speaker 1: mention the high activity within the Arctic Circle, Chinese ships,
Speaker 1: Russian ships. Can you maybe spell out, because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of sensible people who say, oh, this is an overreaction.
Speaker 1: Do you see that as heightened activity to the point
Speaker 1: where the United States does have to start paying attention
Speaker 1: to it in a way that it probably hasn't in
Speaker 1: the previous decades.
Speaker 3: Well, certainly, the Russians are acting and planning that they
Speaker 3: want to be the dominant power in the Arctic, and
Speaker 3: obviously we need to counter that. And President Obama, President
Speaker 3: George W. Bush, President Obama and President Biden, as well
Speaker 3: as President Trump in his first term, all acted on
Speaker 3: that that we're in the Arctic Council. We've been working
Speaker 3: with our Arctic allies now Finland and Sweden and Denmark
Speaker 3: and Canada to try to counteract what the Russians are doing.
Speaker 3: And Chinese are a different case. They're not an Arctic power.
Speaker 3: They used to tell me that we're a near Arctic power.
Speaker 3: I say, well, look at the map, you're not an
Speaker 3: Arctic power. But they believe they are. They're working with
Speaker 3: the Russians, and if you think about the fact that
Speaker 3: there's going to be this northern passage through the Arctic,
Speaker 3: at least in the summer months. That is consequential commercially,
Speaker 3: both for a business but also for energy flows. And
Speaker 3: so we do face a challenge in the Arctic. Greenland
Speaker 3: is strategically important. President Trump is not wrong about that.
Speaker 3: But there's a way to go about this, and that's
Speaker 3: to work through allies. And frankly, I should tell you
Speaker 3: both as ambassador to NATO and also as ambassador to China,
Speaker 3: we are always stronger working with our treaty allies to
Speaker 3: contain Russian and Chinese power than trying to do it
Speaker 3: on our own or in this case, threatening the use
Speaker 3: of military force. It just doesn't make sense for us
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 2: Hey, ambassador, just quickly here what happens with China next.
Speaker 2: They certainly, as you point out, have lost face in
Speaker 2: this whole thing, given their close partnership to Venezuela. We've
Speaker 2: had Peter Sheher from Academy saying that they have an
Speaker 2: army of lawyers that they might deploy. They also have
Speaker 2: the cudgel of rare earth materials. What levers can they
Speaker 2: pull to try to turn this around? In just a
Speaker 2: minute here, professor.
Speaker 3: I think the Chinese have lost faith, certainly because Venezuela
Speaker 3: was in effect a client state in many ways of China,
Speaker 3: and China could do nothing to prevent what the US
Speaker 3: military did last weekend. Second, the Chinese want to continue
Speaker 3: to be the major trade partner of South America, and
Speaker 3: that's a really unfortunate reality for the United States. Twenty
Speaker 3: years ago, America was a leading trade partner, and nearly
Speaker 3: everybody now China is. So I think strategically our aim
Speaker 3: should be much stronger American investment, private investment, and government
Speaker 3: activity in South America, in Central America to counteract what
Speaker 3: I think is a very negative dynamic, and that is
Speaker 3: China's more influential than we are, unfortunately economically. So that's
Speaker 3: the route the President Biden was trying to take, and
Speaker 3: I hope it's the route the President Trump will take.