WASHINGTON: The White House said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is discussing options for acquiring Greenland, including potential use of the US military, in a revival of his ambition to control the strategic island despite European objections.

Trump sees acquiring Greenland as a US national security priority necessary to “deter our adversaries in the Arctic region,” the White House said in a statement.

“The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilising the US military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal,” the White House said.

Greenland has repeatedly said it does not want to be part of the United States. Leaders from major European powers and Canada rallied behind the Arctic territory on Tuesday, saying it belongs to its people.

A US military seizure of Greenland from a longtime ally, Denmark, would send shock waves through the NATO alliance and deepen the divide between Trump and European leaders.

The strong opposition has not deterred Trump from reviewing how to make Greenland a US hub in an area where there is growing interest from Russia and China. Trump’s interest, initially voiced in 2019 during his first term in office, has been rekindled in recent days in the wake of the US arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Emboldened by Maduro’s capture last weekend, Trump has voiced his belief that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” and has put pressure on both Colombia and Cuba.

He has also started talking about Greenland again after putting it on the back burner for months.

A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Trump and his advisers are discussing a variety of ways to acquire Greenland.

Greenland for sale?

Those options include the outright US purchase of Greenland or forming a Compact of Free Association with the territory, the official said. A COFA agreement would stop short of Trump’s ambition to make the island of 57,000 people a part of the United States.

The official did not provide a potential purchase price.

“Diplomacy is always the president’s first option with anything, and dealmaking. He loves deals. So if a good deal can be struck to acquire Greenland, that would definitely be his first instinct,” the official said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers that recent administration threats against Greenland did not signal an imminent invasion and that the goal is to buy the island from Denmark during a classified briefing late on Monday for congressional leaders, two sources familiar with the briefing said.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Rubio’s comment.

Members of Congress, including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans, pushed back against the administration’s comments on Greenland, noting that NATO member Denmark has been a loyal US ally.

“When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honour its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, the co-chairs of the Senate NATO Observer Group, said in a statement.

Administration officials say the island is crucial to the US due to its deposits of minerals important for high-tech and military applications. These resources remain untapped due to labour shortages, scarce infrastructure and other challenges.

“It’s not going away,” the official said about the president’s drive to acquire Greenland during his remaining three years in office.

• Venezuela, US holding talks to export crude to US refineries.
• Talks may lead to redirecting oil cargoes originally meant for China.
• Chevron currently controls flow of Venezuelan crude to US.

Houston/Washington: Venezuela is in talks with the United States about exporting its crude oil to American refineries, a move that could mean fewer shipments heading to China. 

Government officials in Caracas and Washington are discussing exporting Venezuelan crude to refiners in the United States, five government, industry and shipping sources told Reuters on Tuesday, a deal that could divert supplies away from China while helping state company PDVSA avoid deeper output cuts.

Venezuela has millions of barrels of oil loaded on tankers and in storage tanks that it has been unable to ship due to a blockade on exports imposed by US President Donald Trump since mid-December.

The blockade was part of rising US pressure on the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro that culminated in US forces capturing him this weekend.

A potential deal to sell the trapped crude to the US could initially require reallocating cargoes originally bound for China, two sources said. The Asian country has been Venezuela’s top buyer in the last decade and especially since the United States imposed sanctions on companies involved in oil trade with Venezuela in 2020.

The supply would increase the volume of Venezuelan oil exported to the US, a flow that is currently controlled entirely by Chevron, PDVSA’s main joint venture partner, under a US authorisation.

Chevron, which has been exporting between 100,000 and 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Venezuelan oil to the US, has emerged in recent weeks as the only company fluidly loading and shipping crude from the South American country amid the blockade.

PDVSA has already had to cut production due to the embargo, because it is running out of storage for the oil. If PDVSA does not find a way to export oil soon, it would have to cut production more, one of the sources said.

The White House, Venezuelan government officials and PDVSA did not immediately comment. Venezuela’s oil ministry has said the US wants to steal the country’s oil reserves and denounced Maduro’s capture as a kidnapping.

US refineries on the Gulf Coast can process Venezuela’s heavy crude grades and were importing some 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) before Washington first imposed energy sanctions on Venezuela.

It was not immediately clear how sanctioned PDVSA would obtain proceeds from the oil sales.

The officials have been in talks this week about possible sale mechanisms, including auctions to allow interested US buyers to participate in cargo offers, and the issuance of US licences to PDVSA’s business partners that could lead to supply contracts, two sources said.

The parties have also discussed if the Venezuelan crude can refill the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the future, one of the sources said.

• Commitment comes at ‘coalition of willing’ gathering.
• Security protocols ‘as strong as anyone has ever seen’: Witkoff.
• Guarantees would enter into force after ceasefire.
  

The United States for the first time on Tuesday backed a broad coalition of Ukraine’s allies in vowing to provide security guarantees that leaders said would include binding commitments to support the country if Russia attacks again.

The pledge came at a summit in Paris of the “coalition of the willing” of mainly European nations to firm up guarantees to reassure Kyiv in the event of a ceasefire with Russia, which invaded its neighbour in 2014 and again at full scale in 2022.

Unlike previous coalition meetings, the summit was also attended by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — President Donald Trump’s son-in-law — as well as America’s top general in Europe, Alexus Grynkewich, who a day earlier fleshed out details of security guarantees with European army chiefs.

Witkoff, who has led talks with Russia, said after the summit that Trump “strongly stands behind security protocols”.

“Those security protocols are meant to … deter any attacks, any further attacks in Ukraine, and … if there are any attacks, they’re meant to defend, and they will do both. They are as strong as anyone has ever seen,” he said at a joint news conference with the French, German, British and Ukrainian leaders.

Kushner said that if Ukrainians were to make a final deal “they have to know that after a deal they are secure, they have, obviously, a robust deterrence, and there’s real backstops to make sure that this will not happen again.”

Proposal for US to lead ceasefire monitoring

A statement by coalition leaders also said that allies will participate in a proposed US-led ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism. Officials have said this would likely involve drones, sensors and satellites, not US troops.

The statement was not explicitly endorsed by the United States and details of a US role were watered down from an earlier draft, notably removing language that outlined the use of US capabilities to support a multinational force in Ukraine.

But European officials hailed the involvement of the US envoys and their strong comments as evidence Washington stood behind the security framework.

Talks to bring the almost four-year war to an end have accelerated since November. However, Moscow has yet to signal willingness to make concessions after Kyiv pushed for changes to a US proposal that initially backed Russia’s main demands.

Moscow has also given no public sign that it would accept a peace deal with the security guarantees envisaged by Ukraine’s allies. Russia has previously rejected any Nato members having troops inside Ukraine.

Focus on legally binding security guarantees

Until recently, much of the allies’ focus was on pledges of military aid for Ukraine’s forces and possible contributions to an international reassurance force.

But attention has now shifted to legally binding guarantees to come to Kyiv’s aid in the event of another attack by Moscow. The possibility of a military response is likely to trigger debate in many European countries, diplomats say.

“These commitments may include the use of military capabilities, intelligence and logistical support, diplomatic initiatives, adoption of additional sanctions,” the leaders’ statement said, adding that they would now “finalise binding commitments.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the discussions had been substantive with the US delegation, but suggested more still needed to be done.

European leaders present at the meeting, including French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stressed that the statement showed renewed unity between Europe and the United States on helping Ukraine.

Macron and Starmer brushed aside questions about whether they could rely on commitments by Trump, particularly given his renewed claims that the US should take over Greenland, an autonomous part of Nato ally Denmark.

France, Britain ready to deploy troops after ceasefire

The leaders’ statement also pledged a European-led “Multinational Force for Ukraine … to support the rebuilding of Ukraine’s armed forces and support deterrence” with “the proposed support of the US”.

France and Britain signed a declaration of intent on the future deployment of multinational forces once a ceasefire is reached.

Macron said that could involve sending thousands of French troops.

“It paves the way for the legal framework under which British, French and partner forces could operate on Ukrainian soil, securing Ukraine’s skies and seas and regenerating Ukraine’s armed forces for the future,” Starmer said.