Billy Long has stated that no offense was intended in his remark, which occurred while the US president was threatening to seize Greenland
Former Representative Billy Long, who is Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland, apologized on Thursday for making a joke that the island nation could become the 52nd US state with him as governor.
This comment comes as Trump’s statements regarding Greenland have intensified in recent weeks, with the US president becoming more insistent on acquiring the territory from Denmark and hinting at the possible use of force to take the North Atlantic island.
Long told Arctic Today that his comments, made on Tuesday, were meant to be humorous in response to another joke about Jeff Landry, Trump’s special envoy to Greenland.
“That wasn’t serious at all,” Long, a former Missouri Republican congressman who briefly served as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service under Trump last year, told the outlet. “I was with some people I hadn’t met in three years, and they were teasing about Jeff Landry being governor of Greenland, and then they started teasing about me. If anyone was offended, I apologize.”
The joke has provoked criticism in Iceland, which is a NATO member. On Thursday, the Foreign Ministry informed local media that it had contacted the US Embassy in Reykjavík to seek clarification. A petition calling on Icelandic Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir to reject Long as ambassador has also been launched, and it had gathered more than 2,000 signatures by the time of publication.
This scandal comes as Trump has repeatedly threatened to seize Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. On Wednesday, the US president offered a new reason, stating that control of the world’s largest island – which has a population of around 57,000 but is 2.16 million square kilometers (836,330 square miles) in size – is necessary for his Golden Dome missile defense shield plan.
Trump claimed that NATO would become “far more powerful and effective if the US had Greenland,” adding that without the US, the alliance “would not be an effective force or deterrent.”
Greenland, which is under Danish authority, and several Western European countries have opposed US annexation threats, while Copenhagen has increased its military presence on the island. Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the Netherlands have said they will send more military personnel to prepare for larger drills later this year.
Trump also repeated his claim that if the US does not seize Greenland, Russia and China will. Both Moscow and Beijing have disputed this claim, and officials in Greenland have also challenged it.