US senators have introduced a bill aimed at blocking President Donald Trump’s occupation of NATO territory, including the autonomous Danish island of Greenland.
The bipartisan NATO Unity and Protection Act, introduced Tuesday, would prohibit the Pentagon and State Department from using funds to “blockade, occupy, annex, or otherwise assert control” over the territory of another NATO member state.
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The bill, authored by Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Lisa Murkowski, comes amid growing concern over President Trump’s repeated insistence that Denmark’s semi-autonomous territory of Greenland be under Washington’s control, including the use of force if necessary.
“This bipartisan bill makes clear that American taxpayers cannot be used to undermine NATO and violate our own commitments to NATO,” Shaheen, who represents New Hampshire, said in a statement.
“This bill sends a clear message that recent rhetoric around Greenland deeply undermines America’s own national security interests and faces bipartisan opposition in Congress,” the senator said.
Murkowski, a rare Republican critic of Trump who represents Alaska, said the 32-nation NATO security alliance is “the strongest line of defense” against efforts to undermine global peace and stability.
“The very idea that the United States would use its vast resources against an ally is deeply disturbing and must be completely rejected by Congress,” Murkowski said.
Jessica Peek, an expert on international law and the law of war at the University of California, Los Angeles, expressed hope that the bill would receive broad support in Congress.
“The passage of such a bill would put a stop to the president acting unilaterally and continuing to threaten the NATO relationship,” Peek told Al Jazeera.
“However, President Trump has repeatedly threatened NATO this term and last term, and we have seen in other instances that he is willing to override the authority of Congress when it fits his broader policies.”
President Trump’s threat to seize Greenland alarmed the United States’ European allies and prompted warnings of the end of NATO, which is built on the principle that an armed attack on any member state is considered an attack on all members.
President Trump, who has argued that control of the vast Arctic region is vital to U.S. national security, dismissed concerns about fracturing the alliance that has been the cornerstone of the Western-led security order since World War II.
President Trump also claimed that if the United States did not do so, China or Russia would take control of Greenland, which has vast reserves of fossil fuels and critical minerals.
President Trump said Sunday of his plans for the territory: “I want to make a deal with them. It’s easier that way.”
“But either way, we’re going to get Greenland.”
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen made some of their strongest comments to date on Tuesday, rebuking President Trump and defending Copenhagen’s sovereignty over the territory.
“If we had to choose between the United States and Denmark right now, we would choose Denmark,” Nielsen said at a joint news conference in Copenhagen.
“We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU,” he said.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lökke Rasmussen and Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt are scheduled to meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., to discuss the escalating crisis.
A bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Chris Coons and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, is scheduled to arrive in Denmark on Friday for talks.
A majority of Greenland’s 57,000 residents oppose US control of the territory, according to an opinion poll.
A survey commissioned by Danish newspaper Berlingske last year found that 85% of residents said they did not want the United States to join, while only 6% were in favor.
