Trump’s Greenland Initiative: Hospital Ship Announcement After Arctic Diplomacy Standoff

Trump’s Greenland Initiative: Hospital Ship Announcement After Arctic Diplomacy Standoff

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he is sending a hospital boat to Greenland, the Arctic island and Danish territory he has sought to acquire.

“Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there. It’s on the way!!!” the president posted on social media alongside an illustration of the naval hospital ship the USNS Mercy.

It is unclear what Trump was referring to in his post. Greenland and Denmark have free, nationalized health care systems.

CNN has reached out to the White House, the Danish Embassy in Washington, Landry’s office, the Danish government and Greenland’s parliament for more details. The Pentagon referred questions to US Northern Command, which in turn referred questions to the US Navy. The Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Landry, whom Trump tapped in December to serve as special envoy to Greenland, said on social media he is “proud to work” together with Trump on “this important issue.”

The US Navy has two mobile hospital ships, the USNS Mercy and the USNS Comfort, that support troops during deployments and provide services for US disaster relief and humanitarian operations. During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the Navy deployed the USNS Comfort to New York City, the epicenter of the virus outbreak in the United States.

Strategically located Greenland is the world’s least densely populated country and, due to the limited network of roads, its 56,000 residents travel by boat, helicopter and plane between the island’s towns. The US has one military base in Greenland, the Pituffik Space Base, which is on the western coast of the island.