Denmark and its territory, Greenland, on Sunday rejected Donald Trump\u2019s offer to send a naval hospital ship to the Arctic island coveted by the US leader.\n<\/p>\n
A day earlier, Trump said he was sending \u201ca great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
But Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who heads the autonomous territory\u2019s government, wrote on his Facebook page: \u201cThat will be \u2018no thanks\u2019 from us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s idea to send a US hospital ship here to Greenland has been duly noted. But we have a public health system where care is free for citizens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not the case in the United States, where going to the doctor costs money.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen likewise told Danish broadcaster DR: \u201cThe Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs. They receive it either in Greenland or, if they require specialised treatment, they receive it in Denmark.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIt\u2019s not as if there\u2019s a need for a special healthcare initiative in Greenland.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the day that Trump made his proposal, Danish forces evacuated a crew member of a US submarine off the coast of Greenland\u2019s capital, Nuuk, after the sailor requested urgent medical attention.\n<\/p>\n
Denmark\u2019s Joint Arctic Command said in a post on Facebook that the crew member was flown to a hospital in Nuuk after an unspecified medical emergency on board the vessel.\n<\/p>\n
\u2013 AI-generated hospital ship \u2013\n<\/p>\n
In Greenland, as in Denmark, access to healthcare is free for citizens. There are five regional hospitals across the vast Arctic island, with the one in the capital Nuuk, serving patients from all over the territory.\n<\/p>\n
Without explicitly mentioning the US proposal, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she was \u201chappy to live in a country where access to healthcare is free and equal for all. Where insurance or wealth does not determine whether one receives dignified treatment\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
Trump, in his Truth Social message on Saturday about the hospital ship, posted an AI-generated image of a US Navy medical vessel, USNS Mercy.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s on the way!!!\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear if that meant he was deploying that ship to Greenland.\n<\/p>\n
The US president indicated the deployment was being carried out in coordination with Jeff Landry, appointed in December as the US Special Envoy to the Arctic island.\n<\/p>\n
Aaja Chemnitz, who represents Greenland in the Danish Parliament, wrote on Facebook that, while Greenland\u2019s health system had its share of problems, they were best resolved through cooperation with Denmark.\n<\/p>\n
Denmark, she noted, \u201cis one of the wealthiest and most educated countries, for example in the field of healthcare,\u201d contrasting it with \u201cthe United States, which has its own healthcare system problems\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Greenland signed an agreement with Copenhagen to improve the treatment of Greenlandic patients in Danish hospitals.\n<\/p>\n
Denmark\u2019s central bank had warned in January that the Arctic island\u2019s public finances were under pressure from demographic trends, pointing to its ageing population and shrinking workforce.\n<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018New normal\u2019 \u2013<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly said he believes the United States must control Greenland to ensure US national security.\n<\/p>\n
Earlier threats he made to seize the territory, by force if necessary, have ebbed since he struck a \u201cframework\u201d deal with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence.\n<\/p>\n
The defence minister, Lund Poulsen, told DR he was not aware of a possible arrival of the suggested US hospital ship.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump is constantly tweeting about Greenland. So this is undoubtedly an expression of the new normal that has taken hold in international politics,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in Nuuk, where a third of the island\u2019s 57,000 inhabitants live, people are tired of the US president\u2019s repeated jabs.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care,\u201d a man said under sparse, icy snowfall when asked by AFP about Trump\u2019s recent remarks, while most people avoided journalists\u2019 questions.\n<\/p>\n
AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denmark and its territory, Greenland, on Sunday rejected Donald Trump\u2019s offer to send a naval hospital ship to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[649,27,26,184,1584,57,14538,14179,1583,1515,9318],"class_list":["post-21390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denmark","tag-arctic","tag-danmark","tag-denmark","tag-donald-trump","tag-foreign-policy","tag-greenland","tag-healthcare-system","tag-hospital-ship","tag-international-relations","tag-nuuk","tag-us-navy"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}