Mike Waltz says Greenland pivotal to Arctic security amid Russo-Chinese threats

President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming National Security Adviser, current U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz, is outlining why Greenland matters to American national security.

During a Fox News interview, Waltz explained that amid melting polar ice caps, a battle for minerals and shipping lanes, and existential threats posed by Moscow and Beijing, that the previously unlikely prospect of gaining control over Greenland that Trump has been floating is pivotal to securing America’s future.

“This is not just about Greenland. This is about the Arctic,” Waltz told host Jesse Watters.

“You have Russia that is trying to become king of the Arctic with 60-plus icebreakers, some of them nuclear powered, you know how many we have? We have two and one just caught on fire.”

But Russia is only one part of the problem.

“This is about critical minerals. This is about natural resources,” Waltz added.

“This is about, as the polar ice caps pull back, the Chinese are now cranking out ice breakers and pushing up there as well. So it’s oil and gas, it’s our national security, it’s critical minerals. And Denmark can be a great ally, but you can’t treat Greenland, which they have operational control over, as some kind of backwater. It’s in the Western Hemisphere, multiple Presidents have tried to bring it into our sphere.”

Greenland, along with other Trump initiatives, strikes Waltz as an “America First” move to secure what he calls the “Monroe Doctrine 2.0.” And America’s ally to the north, who Trump has suggested should be an American state, needs to do more, Waltz argued.

“You’re starting to see shipping lanes and shipping coming across the north side, the famous Northwest Passage. That all has to be secured, Jesse. And right now we don’t have a single base in the north side of Alaska, and we need the Canadians to step up. They’re next to last in NATO defense spending.”

Trump has not ruled out military or economic action to take control of Greenland or the Panama Canal, and has suggested the Gulf of Mexico should be rechristened the Gulf of America.

As one would expect, Waltz is on board with these bold proposals.

“I’m waiting to see the maps redrawn,” he quipped to Watters.