President Donald Trump‘s designs to take over Greenland have been quiet for a few weeks, but a Joint Arctic Command medical evacuation by Denmark on Saturday now has the U.S. sending a “great hospital boat” to take care of the “sick.”
“Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there,” Trump wrote Saturday night on Truth Social. “It’s on the way!!!”
Gov. Landry was designated the special envoy to Greenland in December and held formal discussions of the road map of Trump’s designs to solidify Arctic security from threats from Russia or China.
Then in late January, Landry spoke with NATO leadership and expressed support for a “framework of a future deal” to expand U.S. influence in the region.
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Landry, who was in Washington, D.C., for the national governors meeting late last week, thanked Trump for his support for Greenland.
“Proud to work with you on this important issue!” Landry replied on X to Trump’s Truth Social post.
The news comes as Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command evacuated a crew member who required urgent medical treatment from a U.S. submarine in Greenlandic waters, seven nautical miles outside of Greenland’s capital of Nuuk.
The crew member has been transferred to the Greenlandic health authorities via a Danish Defense Seahawk helicopter to a hospital in Nuuk, according to the Joint Arctic Command.
Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen did not directly reject Trump’s overture, but he did tell Danish broadcaster DR on Sunday that Greenland is all set.
“The Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs,” Poulsen said. “They receive it either in Greenland, or, if they require specialized treatment, they receive it in Denmark.
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“So it’s not as if there’s a need for a special healthcare initiative in Greenland.”
Danish King Frederik paid a second visit to Greenland in a year last week, an attempt to demonstrate unity with the territory in the face of Trump’s push to buy the island.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen did not directly address the Trump post on his own Facebook account hours later, but she did extoll socialist ideology on healthcare “for all.”
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“Am happy to live in a country where there is free and equal access to health for all,” Frederiksen wrote in a translated post, sharing a Democrat attack point on Trump’s Republican Party’s struggles to reform what Trump has rebuked as a “failure” of Obamacare. “Where it’s not insurances and wealth that determine whether you get proper treatment. You have the same approach in Greenland.”
The U.S. Navy has two hospital ships, the Mercy and the Comfort. Both were last docked in Alabama for repairs, according to Reuters.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
