Senior Coalition MP says Trump ‘talks a lot’, not serious on Greenland threatJoseph Olbrycht-PalmerNewsWireWed, 7 January 2026 1:41PM
Senior Coalition MP Angus Taylor has downplayed Donald Trump’s repeated threats to seize Greenland, saying the US President “talks a lot” and does not always intend to follow through.
Mr Trump first floated taking the self-governing Danish territory in 2019.
He drew ire from Denmark in March last year by saying the US would “go as far as we have to go” to gain control of the territory.
His latest comments declaring Washington needed “Greenland from the standpoint of national security” came after US special forces forcibly extracted Venezuela’s autocratic president Nicolas Maduro and vowed his administration would “run” the South American country.
But Mr Taylor, who is the Opposition’s defence spokesman, said on Wednesday Mr Trump’s words should be taken with a pinch of salt and that Greenland was not Venezuela.
“He talks a lot and occasionally … he will say things that are well beyond the bounds of what he ever intends to do,” he told Sky News.
“But look, I take him on what he does, and what he’s done is made an intervention in Venezuela against an industrial scale criminal enterprise that was led by the president, and that is an intervention that I can support.”
The Albanese government has made clear it would oppose a US annexation of Greenland, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong saying its future “is a matter for Greenland and Denmark to decide”.
“The Australian government has been clear and consistent in stating our position on the importance of upholding international law,” she said.
An enormous island in the Arctic, 80 per cent of Greenland is covered by ice, forcing most of its 57,000 inhabitants to live on the ice-free coastal rim.
Beneath the ice lies vast untapped oil reserves and rare earth deposits.
Greenland’s position is also key to North America’s security because it forms a choke point, along with Iceland and the UK, for maritime traffic, including Russia’s roaming nuclear-armed submarines.
Amid scorn in Denmark and protests from across Europe, US officials have walked back Mr Trump’s remarks and said the administration was considering buying Greenland.
But in a brief statement on Wednesday (AEDT) the White House left the door open to military action.
“The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, using the US military is always an option at the Commander-in-Chief’s disposal,” it said.
The Danish government has warned any US attempts to seize Greenland would end NATO.
Originally published as Senior Coalition MP says Trump ‘talks a lot’, not serious on Greenland threat
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