Leaders urge Trump to end threats

Countries respond after Cuba, Colombia remarks

By: Kim Hjlmgarrd
and Antonio Fins
USA Today Network

..... Greenland's leader declared "enough is enough" and Denmark's prime minister urged the White House to "stop the threats" about taking over Greenland after President Donald Trump reiterated his wish to do so.
..... And Trump suggested Venezuela won't be the only Latin American country to face upheaval as he addressed reporters January 4 [2026] on Air Force One while flying back to Washington from Florida, where he spent the holidays.
..... Denmark Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said January 4 [2026] it :makes absolutely no sense to talk about the U.S. needing to take over Greenland. The U.S. has no right to annex any of the three countries in the Danish Kingdom.
..... With ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in U.S. custody, Trump also continues eyeing Cuba and Columbia, and he previously has spoken about the Panama Canal.
..... "When the President of the United States says that 'we need Greenland' and links us to Venezuela and military intervention, it's not just wrong. It's disrespectful," Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said.
..... A day after the U.S> military captured Maduro and removed him form the seat of power in Caracas, Trump spoke with reporters at Mar-a-Lago, saying the communist Cuban regime on a Caribbean island 90 miles from U.S. shores remains in his sights. He spoke more January 4 [2026] on the flight.
..... "Cuba looks like it;s ready to fall," Trump said. "I don't know if they're going to hold out. But Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from their Venezuela , from the Venezuelan oil.
..... "They're not getting any of it. And Cuba is literally ready to fall."
..... The president also reiterated aggressive comments toward Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who last month [12/2025] denigrated the Trump administration as a "clan of pedophiles," citing investigatory files form sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
..... As for Colombia, led by the leftist Petro, Trump said the country is "run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States."
..... Asked January 4 [2026] whether the United States will conduct an operation in Colombia, Trump said: "Sounds good to me."
..... Petro, in response to Trump's threat, issued a lengthy statement on X: "If you arrest the president whom a good part of my people want and respect, you will unleash the popular jaguar."
..... The Trump administration;s specific plans for Venezuela were unclear: Trump said Washington will "run" the country, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested coercion would persuade Venezuela to act in the United States' interests.
..... On December 21, [2025] Trump appointed Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as psychical envoy to Greenland. Landry has publicity expressed support for incorporating Greenland into the United States.
..... Greenland's strategic location between Europe and North America makes it a critical site for the U.S. ballistic missile defense system. The island's significant mineral resources also align with Washington's ambition to reduce dependence on Chinese exports, Reuters reported.
..... The move has elevated concerns again in Copenhagen that the same could happen with Greenland, which is a Danish territory with limited self-rule.
..... "We do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defense," Trump said in the magazine interview.
..... "Threats, pressure, and talk of annexation have no place between friends,: Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said on Facebook on January 4. [2026] "Enough is enough. ... No more fantasies about annexation."
..... Speaking January 4 [2026] to reporters in Air Force One, Trump said he would revisit the topic of Greenland in "20 days." It wasn't immediately clear why he chose this time frame.
..... The White House didn't immediately respond to a request to explain the timing.
..... Denmark, like the United stats, is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which means that both NATO countries are covered by the alliance's security guarantee. Denmark also has a separate defense agreement with the United States that allows the Pentagon access to Greenland. Trump has repeatedly suggested that the United States needs to annex Greenland because of its strategic location and mineral wealth. his remarks have confounded Danish and Greenlandic officials.
..... After the raid in Venezuela, some European officials and legal and foreign affairs experts have expressed concerns about the legality of the U.S. operational seizure and what signal it sends to authoritarian leaders around the world.
..... "Military force is justified only in response to a clear, credible and imminent threat to the security of the United States to its treaty allies," the quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington think tank, said in a statement. "Venezuela, whatever its internal dysfunctions or connections to the international drug trade, does not pose such a threat. Using force absent that standard is not defense: it is aggression. It substitutes coercion for diplomacy and power for principle."
..... Rubio has said the nation is not at war with Venezuela itself, only "against drug trafficking organizations."
..... As part of his Venezuela announcement January 3, [2026] Trump said an "oil embargo" on it was in full force. Once one of the most prosperous nations in Latin America, Venezuela's economy nosedived further under Maduro, sending about one in five Venezuelans abroad in one of the world's biggest exoduses, Reuters reported.
..... The administration is in position to fully shut off its oil shipments to Cuba. The petroleum subsides the Maduro regime has supplied Havana with were one of the few remaining sources of foreign aid the Cuban government has been able to count on.
..... Currently led by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, the communist regime in Havana has remained in power for 67 years.

..... Kim Hjelmgaard reports for USA Today; Antonio Fins reports for the Palm Beach Post. contributing: Joey Garrison and Bart Jansen, USA Today; Reuters

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