Republican Lawmakers Push Back Against Trump's Greenland Ambitions

Donald Trump’s increasingly aggressive campaign to take control of Greenland has attracted sharp rebukes from Republican lawmakers, raising the possibility that Congress will try to rein in the president’s territorial ambitions. At least one Republican lawmaker has publicly suggested that if Trump were to use military force to seize the Danish territory, it would be an impeachable offence — and spell the end of his presidency. Several others have said they expect a war powers resolution, which would prevent the president from deploying troops to Greenland without congressional approval, to garner the backing of the majority of lawmakers in the coming weeks. The Republican Party controls both chambers of Congress but has done little to curtail Trump after he has pushed the boundaries of presidential power at their expense over the past year. A war powers resolution intended to limit further military action in Venezuela failed last week after Trump successfully pressed two Republican lawmakers to change their votes. But the chorus of criticism from within the party over Greenland is one of the first major signals that a growing number of Republicans are willing to push back on what they see as presidential over-reach. At the same time, Democratic lawmakers are weighing ways to censure the president over his threats to slap tariffs on European allies which refuse to bend to his plans to control the territory. North Carolina Republican senator Thom Tillis on Tuesday said he was trying to “de-escalate” the situation with Greenland. He has shown a renewed willingness to criticise Trump in recent weeks, threatening to hold up approval for the president’s forthcoming nomination for Federal Reserve chair following the justice department’s probe into testimony before Congress by Jay Powell, the central bank’s current head. “I am not critical of the president. I am critical of the bad advice he is getting on Greenland,” Tillis told CNBC, adding that “kinetic action or sort of increase in military presence” would trigger a war powers resolution supported by the majority of Senate Republicans. “I think we could easily get veto-proof majorities,” Tillis added, suggesting at least two-thirds of the 100-member Senate would sign on. Kentucky Republican senator Rand Paul echoed his comments, telling NBC News at the weekend he had heard of “no Republican support” for a military invasion of Greenland, adding: “Even the most hawkish members of our caucus have said they won’t support that.” Tillis was speaking on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, days after joining a bipartisan delegation of US lawmakers on a trip to Denmark to meet Danish officials and their counterparts from Greenland. Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski was the only other Republican besides Tillis on the trip to Copenhagen. But she said after meeting Danish and Greenlandic officials that many more members of the party shared her concerns over the president’s actions. “Greenland needs to be viewed as our ally, not as an asset,” Murkowski said. “I don’t think that the absence of Republicans [in Denmark] is because they don’t care about this issue.” Murkowski last week proposed legislation with Democratic senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire that would prevent the US military occupying or annexing Nato territories, including Greenland. Similar legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. House Republican Don Bacon of Nebraska has been among the loudest critics of Trump’s Greenland policy. He also insisted a silent majority of lawmakers in the president’s party is prepared to try to block any military action on the Arctic island. “Most Republicans know this is immoral and wrong and we’re going to stand up against it,” the Nebraska lawmaker told CNN at the weekend. Bacon, who is not seeking re-election in this November’s midterms, last week told a local newspaper in Omaha that the president’s approach to Greenland was “utter buffoonery” and that an invasion would be the “end of his presidency”. “The off-ramp is realising Republicans aren’t going to tolerate this and he’s going to have to back off,” Bacon added. “[Trump] hates being told no, but in this case, I think Republicans need to be firm.” Bacon has also criticised the president’s threat to hit European countries with fresh tariffs of 10 per cent from next month until they agree to support his ambition to acquire Greenland, calling on Congress to “reclaim tariff authorities”. Bacon on Tuesday said “most Americans disagree with the president’s heavy handedness”, adding: “He is threatening Nato members, which is shameful.” Despite a Supreme Court ruling pending on whether Trump has the authority to impose sweeping tariffs, lawmakers have separately proposed legislation to curb the president’s latest trade threats. Peter Welch, a Democratic senator from Vermont who also joined the US delegation in Copenhagen, on Tuesday said he would introduce a resolution next week forcing a vote in the Senate to prohibit the president’s use of tariffs to punish Nato allies. It remains unclear how many Republican lawmakers would back the effort. “This is a dead-end confrontation that will only do harm to us, to Nato and our standing in the world,” Welch said. “We stand for self-determination. We stand for sovereignty. And President Trump is challenging that in a way that’s going to be very harmful.” Opinion polls suggest Trump’s plans to acquire Greenland — either through purchase or military force — are exceedingly unpopular with the American public. A CNN survey last week found just 25 per cent of US adults were in favour of the president’s attempt to control the territory. Republicans were evenly split, with just half saying they supported the idea. Still, a handful of the president’s allies have remained vocal in their support for Trump’s tactics. Addressing a joint session of the UK parliament in London on Tuesday, US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said it was his “mission” to “encourage our friends and help to calm the waters, so to speak”. In a nearly 30-minute speech, Johnson, the most powerful member of the US Congress, did not mention Greenland by name. But he invoked past co-operation between the US and UK as he called on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and European leaders to embrace Trump’s vision. “We’ve always been able to work through our differences calmly as friends. We will continue to do that,” Johnson said. “Let us look to agreement, continue our dialogue and find a resolution, just as we always have in the past.” But he added Trump was “taking seriously the modern and dynamic threats that China and Russia pose to our global security, especially . . . as it relates to the Arctic”, and warned against inaction. “While we can have thoughtful debate . . . among our friends about how best to counter these threats, we all certainly agree they must be countered,” Johnson said. “We ignore these threats at our peril.”