Pentagon considers shifting Greenland to US Northern Command, sparking concerns over Trump’s ambitions for the territory

Trump administration officials are weighing a change that would shift responsibility for US security interests in Greenland to the military command that oversees America’s homeland defense, underscoring the president’s focus on the strategically important territory that he has repeatedly said he wants to acquire, three sources familiar with the deliberations told CNN.

Trump administration officials are weighing a change that would shift responsibility for US security interests in Greenland to the military command that oversees America’s homeland defense, underscoring the president’s focus on the strategically important territory that he has repeatedly said he wants to acquire, three sources familiar with the deliberations told CNN. The change under consideration would move Greenland out of US European Command’s area of responsibility and into US Northern Command, the sources said. On its face, the idea of putting Greenland under NORTHCOM authority makes some logical sense given it is part of the North American continent, though politically and culturally, it is associated with Europe and is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. Some of the discussions pre-date Trump’s return to office this year, the sources said. US Northern Command declined to comment. CNN has reached out to the Office of the Secretary of Defense as well as Danish and Greenlandic officials for comment. Still, several US officials expressed wariness about the move because of Trump’s repeated insistence that the US “needs” Greenland and his refusal to rule out military action to obtain it. In an interview with NBC that aired last weekend, Trump renewed that threat.