House Republicans say they are unfazed by President Donald Trump‘s threats to seize Greenland, with some not taking the threat seriously and others saying they simply don’t have an opinion on the idea of the United States invading a NATO ally.
Trump has spent weeks publicly calculating different ways to acquire Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. Watching from the sidelines, GOP lawmakers say the situation amounts largely to a negotiation and does not yet require congressional action.
“I think the negotiation part, he’s fine doing what he’s doing right now, obviously if we’re going to have an appropriations $700 billion divide that’ll have to go from Ways and Means [committee] and through Congress and House and Senate side for him to sign,” Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) told the Washington Examiner.
Multiple House Republicans echoed Hern’s sentiment that congressional action would come through the appropriations process in interviews with the Washington Examiner.
Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA), who faces a tough reelection battle this year, said he is “excited to see how the conversations go,” but he doesn’t “have an opinion yet.”
Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT), co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Friends of Denmark Caucus, noted that the public conversation around Greenland needs to be reshaped. Moore claimed that invading a NATO ally is not in the “realm of possibility.”
“All these things are on the table, and we don’t have to acquire Greenland to actually do all of these things, so this whole conversation needs to be reshaped into what are the ultimate objectives,” Moore said. “Once we know that, I think we can go about it in a very strong cooperative way, and I hope we get there.”
Retiring lawmakers such as Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) have a different take, however.
Bacon, a maverick known for breaking with the president, expressed strong feelings compared to his colleagues.
“I think it’s wrong,” Bacon said. “They’re our ally, and they’ve done more to piss off our allies than I’ve seen anybody do in a long time, and so we’re becoming more and more isolated, and our members of these alliances, we weakened them, and it’s not good for national security.”
Bacon went on to say that he has heard a lot of his GOP colleagues “criticize it,” calling the strategy “rude and undiplomatic.”
Bacon was one of three Republicans to vote for a war powers resolution on Venezuela brought up last month before the operation that resulted in the capture of former dictator Nicolas Maduro, and had repeatedly pushed to weaken Trump’s tariff power.
While many in the party wish the issue could go away during a year when many members face uphill battles to keep their seats this November, Democrats have called out Republicans for “complaining in private.”
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“They complain in private and kowtow in public,” a House Democrat told the Washington Examiner.
The president’s recent text messages to the prime minister of Norway about the administration’s desire to acquire Greenland elevated talks on the issue but did not change much of the GOP’s outlook.
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Over the weekend, Trump announced that he would impose a 10% import tax on any European ally that resists his plan to acquire Greenland, a duty that could rise to 25% in June.
While the issue has heated up, the president has refused to rule out military intervention, prompting a delegation of House and Senate lawmakers to travel to Denmark, a NATO ally, to soothe relations.