Washington, Jan 12 (LaPresse) – The US President, Donald Trump, speaking to journalists aboard Air Force One, rejected the idea expressed a few days ago by the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who said that a US acquisition of Greenland would effectively be the end of NATO. Trump instead proclaimed himself the savior of NATO for having encouraged member countries to increase their defense spending. “I like NATO,” he said. He then asked: “If we needed NATO, would they be there for us? I’m not sure they would be.” In the interview with the New York Times published Thursday, when asked what his top priority was, whether acquiring Greenland or preserving NATO, Trump avoided a direct answer but admitted that “it could be a choice.” In that interview, Trump also clarified that the transatlantic alliance would be essentially useless without the United States at its center. Greenland is a semi-autonomous region of Denmark, a NATO member and therefore an ally for the US. The island, with a population of about 57,000, is thus defended by Denmark, whose army is far smaller than that of the United States, which has a military base in Greenland. NATO’s Article 5 on collective defense, which considers an attack on one member as an attack on all, has been invoked only once, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, which led to NATO operations in Afghanistan. It is unclear how the remaining NATO members would react if the United States decided to take control of Greenland by force, or whether they would come to Denmark’s aid.