As the Trump Administration is eyeing Greenland in the wake of the U.S. kidnapping of Venezuela’s President, questions have arisen as to whether the U.S. will use military force. At the White House, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt refused to rule out the military “option.” Asked why President Donald Trump would not rule out military action against a fellow NATO member, Leavitt replied: “That’s not something this President does. All options are always on the table for President Trump.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke similarly before going in to brief members of the U.S. Senate on Jan. 7. “The President always retained the option, if he—every President, not this President, every President—always retains the option—I’m not talking about Greenland; I’m just talking about globally. If the President identifies a threat to the national security of the United States, every President retains the option to address it through military means,” he said. “As a diplomat—which is what I am now, and what we work on—we always prefer to settle it in different ways. That included in Venezuela. We tried repeatedly to reach an outcome here that did not involve having to go in and grab an indicted drug trafficker. Those were unsuccessful, unfortunately.”
