Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wouldn't rule out the US trying to buy Greenland

• US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo didn't explicitly deny that the United States would be interested in possibly buying Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark.
• In an interview with DR1 journalist Johannes Langkilde, Pompeo said "we're trying to get prosperity and security for our good friends here," when asked if the US was still considering the notion.
• In 2019, President Trump confirming that he had toyed with the idea of purchasing Greenland sparked diplomatic tensions between the US and Denmark and led to Trump canceling a planned visit to Denmark.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo didn't explicitly rule out the United States still wanting to buy Greenland on a state visit to Denmark.

In a Tuesday interview with journalist Johannes Langkilde of DR1, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation's television station, Pompeo said the United States is interested in expanding its strategic presence in the Arctic Circle, and refused to say that the US was no longer eyeing a purchase of Greenland, an autonomous territory within Denmark.

At the start of the interview, DR1 asked what the US's motives were behind reopening the US consulate in Greenland's capital city of Nuuk and offering economic aid to the country, especially given Trump's previous interest in purchasing Greenland from Denmark.

Pompeo said that he had "a great conversation" with Denmark's foreign minister and the foreign minister of the Faroe Islands, which are also a part of Denmark, about ensuring the three countries' national security and strategic interests in the Arctic Circle.

"We want to make sure that the Arctic is peaceful and that activity in that region is handled in the appropriate way. It's important that all three of us, the Kingdom of Denmark, the United States, all of us work together to deliver that. That's our objective," Pompeo said.

When Langkilde asked Pompeo to more directly confirm that he was "not in the market for Arctic islands anymore," Pompeo responded, "We're trying to get prosperity and security for our good friends here."

Last year, a minor diplomatic brouhaha erupted between the United States and Denmark after the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was personally interested in purchasing the territory, an idea that alarmed many Danes and was immediately shot down by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

After Trump confirmed the Journal's report partly by tweeting a meme jokingly promising not to build a Trump Tower on Greenland, Frederiksen called the notion "an absurd discussion," leading Trump to both cancel a planned diplomatic visit to Denmark and publicly denounce Frederiksen's comments as "nasty."

"I thought the prime minister's statement that it was an absurd idea was nasty, I thought it was an inappropriate statement," Trump said in August. "All she had to do was say, 'No, we wouldn't be interested.' I thought it was a very not nice way of saying something. They could have told me, 'No.'"