Former NATO chief Stavridis appears to support Trump's views on Greenland

Former NATO supreme allied commander James Stavridis said on Sunday that President-elect Donald Trump’s talk about Greenland is “not a crazy idea.” 

“We could do an awful lot in terms of business, investment, box out the Russians, box out the Chinese, and work very closely with Greenland,” he told John Catsimatidis, host of “The Cats Roundtable” in a Sunday interview on WABC 770 AM.  

The retired admiral referred to Greenland as a “strategic goldmine for the United States,” suggesting support for Trump’s comments on the subject. 

His views are notable because Stavridis has often been a critic of the former and soon to be president in appearances on CNN and MSNBC. He went on MSNBC shortly after the election in November and told host Andrea Mitchell that “There’ll be a lot of internal tension within the [NATO] alliance,” because of Trump’s past comments about the organization. 

“It sits at the very top of the North Atlantic. It protects approaches to our own country … It’s geographically very important. It’s full of strategic minerals, rare earth, probably a lot of gold. It’s got a lot of natural resources,” Stavridis also said in the interview, according to The Hill.

“It doesn’t have to become the 51st state, but it can certainly be an economic objective for us,” he added. 

“I think that’s how it plays out … The Prime Minister of Greenland said, ‘We are not for sale. But we are open for business.’ I think we ought to take him at his word.”

Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede said on Friday that he accepts that Greenland was “a place that the Americans see as part of their world” and that he was open to “discussions about what unites us.”

“We are ready to talk,” he said. “Cooperation is about dialogue. Cooperation means that you will work towards solutions.”

Greenland, the largest island in the world, is an autonomous island within the Kingdom of Denmark with a population of 56,000.