From Greenland to Iran: Trump’s threats stretch far and wide since his Venezuela strike

By Tim Lister, CNN

(CNN) — Since the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by US forces at the weekend, US President Donald Trump and members of his administration have issued warnings to several other governments — including those of Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Iran and Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark.

Trump said Sunday: “We are in the business of having countries around us that are viable and successful and where the oil is allowed to freely come out.”

“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Trump said.

Here’s what to know about what Trump has said in the last two days, and how some of those governments have responded.

Greenland

Trump repeated Sunday that the US needs the huge North Atlantic island of Greenland “from the standpoint of national security.”

“We need Greenland. … It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

Responding to Trump’s latest comments, Greenland’s prime minister, Jens Frederik Nielsen, said in a statement Monday: “The current and repeated rhetoric coming from the United States is entirely unacceptable. When the President of the United States speaks of ‘needing Greenland’ and links us to Venezuela and military intervention, it is not only wrong. It is disrespectful.”

“Our country is not an object in great-power rhetoric. We are a people. A country. A democracy,” Nielsen added.

“We are not in the situation where we are thinking that a takeover of the country might happen overnight,” he later said at a press conference, according to Reuters. “You cannot compare Greenland to Venezuela. We are a democratic country.”

Trump has repeatedly stated that he wants to annex Greenland — a huge, resource-rich island of 836,000 square miles (2.16 million square kilometers) — claiming that the autonomous Danish territory is needed for US national security, although he has also cited “economic security.”

Both Greenland and Denmark, a NATO ally of the US, are staunchly opposed to the idea.

Colombia

Trump had harsh words for Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Sunday, describing him as “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long.”

When pressed by a reporter on whether those comments meant there could be an “operation” in Colombia in the future, Trump responded, “Sounds good to me.”

Petro defended his government’s track record on combating drug trafficking in a nearly 700-word post on X, touting what he described as “the largest cocaine seizure in the world’s history.”

He added: “I am not illegitimate, nor am I a narco. I only have as assets my family home that I still pay for with my salary.”

Petro said he has ordered targeted bombings against drug-linked armed groups while adhering to humanitarian law.

However, cocaine production in Colombia has reach record highs, according to the the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Petro, a former member of the M19 guerrilla group, said later Monday that he would himself fight to defend Colombia.

“I swore not to touch a weapon again … but for the homeland I will take up arms again,” he said.

Petro angered the Trump administration, which canceled his US visa in September, after he called on US soldiers to disobey orders.

Cuba

Trump said Sunday that military intervention was unnecessary in Cuba, a key ally of Venezuela, because it was “ready to fall.”

“I don’t think we need any action,” Trump said. “It looks like it’s going down.”

“I don’t know if they’re going to hold out, but Cuba now has no income,” he added. “They got all their income from Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil.”

But his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, called the Cuban government “a huge problem.”

“I think they’re in a lot of trouble, yes,” Rubio told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

“I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be and our policies are going to be right now, in this regard, but I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime.”

“If I lived in Havana and I worked in the government, I’d be concerned,” Rubio said.

At a rally Saturday in front of the US Embassy in Havana, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel promised not to let the Cuba-Venezuela alliance go down without a fight.

“For Venezuela, of course for Cuba, we are willing to give even our own life, but at a heavy cost,” Díaz-Canel proclaimed.

Mexico

Trump has frequently accused Mexico of not doing enough to clamp down on drug cartels.

On Sunday, he said drugs were “pouring” through Mexico and that “we’re going to have to do something.”

Trump added that the cartels in Mexico are “very strong” and warned that “Mexico has to get their act together.”

In a phone interview with Fox News, Trump said he has asked Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum if she wanted the US military’s help in rooting out drug cartels.

Sheinbaum has repeatedly rejected the US intervention in Venezuela and the seizure of Maduro.

“Mexico reaffirms a principle that is neither new nor open to ambiguity,” she said Monday in a news conference. “We categorically reject intervention in the internal affairs of other countries.”

Responding to Trump’s accusations that Mexico has not done enough to combat drug-trafficking cartels, Sheinbaum asserted: “Mexico cooperates with the United States, including for humanitarian reasons, to prevent fentanyl and other drugs from reaching its population, especially young people.”

“We do not want fentanyl or any drug to get near any young person — whether in the United States, in Mexico, or anywhere else in the world.”

Again rejecting the notion of US military action on Mexican soil, Sheinbaum said she did not think the United States was seriously considering an invasion of Mexico.

Iran

Trump also repeated his warnings to Iran, where anti-government protests have entered their second week.

“If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters Sunday.

Last week, Trump said that if Iran “kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

One Iranian human rights group estimated Sunday that 16 people had been killed in the protests so far. CNN cannot verify that tally.

At the end of last month, Trump warned Iran against any attempt to rebuild its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said he had heard Iran is “behaving badly. … I hear that Iran is trying to build up again, and if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down.”

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sunday the ‌Islamic Republic “will not yield to the enemy” and that rioters should be “put in their place.”

The US bombed several of Iran’s key nuclear facilities in June, amid Israel’s 12-day war against the country. The attack ended what had been a stuttering process of bilateral US-Iranian talks designed to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program.

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Hira Humayun contributed to this report.