White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday forcefully maintained that President Donald Trump did not erroneously refer to Greenland as “Iceland” during his address at the World Economic Forum. Video footage of the gaffes suggests otherwise.
After NewsNation reporter Libby Dean posted on X that the president had mixed up the two nations “around three times” during his address in Davos, Switzerland, Leavitt clapped back in the president’s defense.
“His written remarks referred to Greenland as a ‘piece of ice’ because that’s what it is,” she said. “You’re the only one mixing anything up here.”
Social media users swiftly responded to Leavitt by sharing a 16-second clip that showed the president explicitly saying, “Until the last few days, when I told them about Iceland, they loved me,” in reference to the ongoing tensions over his Greenland proposal.
The president’s verbal slips at Davos may have unintentionally tapped into a Viking “branding” scheme that dates back over a millennium.
The island of Greenland was named by the Viking explorer Erik the Red around 982 A.D. Erik spent three years exploring the icy territory and bestowed it with a more inviting name that doesn’t exactly reflect its frozen terrain.
The gaffes occurred as Trump tried to soften his rhetoric on the proposed acquisition of Greenland, ruling out the use of force to seize the territory. He insisted that the United States would seek “immediate negotiations” to gain control of the “strategically important” island.
He framed the acquisition as a “very small ask” and urged NATO to allow the U.S. to take “ownership” of the island from Denmark to secure it against Russian and Chinese interests.
Trump threatened to impose tariffs on eight European nations that opposed the acquisition unless a deal is reached. In response, the European Union has discussed a retaliatory “trade bazooka” to counter the administration’s coercive tactics. However, on Wednesday, Trump announced a framework of a deal that will require no such tariffs to be imposed.
WHAT IS EUROPE’S ‘TRADE BAZOOKA’ BEING FLOATED AS AN ANSWER TO TRUMP’S GREENLAND THREATS?
The president used his address to highlight domestic economic goals ahead of the midterm elections. He reiterated his plans to prohibit institutional investors from buying single-family homes and to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for one year.
Trump concluded by warning the Davos attendees that the global economy hinges on U.S. success, stating, “When America booms, the entire world booms.… You all follow us down, and you follow us up.”