Three-quarters of Americans say they oppose the United States attempting to take control of Greenland, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, indicating that President Donald Trump’s push to expand America’s territory faces stiff headwinds with the public.
The survey finds just 25% of Americans favor the US attempting to take control of the Danish territory. Even the president’s partisans are about evenly divided, with 50% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents saying they support it and 50% opposed. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are deeply against the move, with 94% opposed overall, including 80% who say they strongly oppose it. About 8 in 10 independents who don’t lean toward either party are also opposed.
Trump said Wednesday on his social media website Truth Social that “anything less” than US control of Greenland is “unacceptable.” The message came ahead of a meeting at the White House between Danish officials, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio that appeared to do little to bring the two sides any closer to an agreement.
The poll finds little appetite for a broader policy of US expansionism, even as Trump extols the military capture of Venezuela’s Nicolas Máduro – declaring afterward that the US would now “run” the country – and as he threatens Iran’s leadership over their violent crackdown on street protests.
Nearly six in ten Americans are concerned that Trump has gone too far in trying to expand America’s power over other countries. Only a third think his efforts in that regard have been about right. And most (55%) say he has already gone too far in using the US military to achieve his goals. A growing share says Trump’s foreign policy decisions this term have hurt America’s standing in the world: 57% say so now, up from 53% last summer.
All told, 52% oppose the US decision to take military action in Venezuela while 48% favor it. There was widespread concern about the stability of the Venezuelan government and a sense that the US military will be involved for a long time.
Ahead of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s scheduled visit to the White House on Thursday, there is broader opposition (58%) to the US effort to control the actions of the government in Venezuela now that Maduro has been removed from power. On that question, strong opposition outpaces strong support, 31% to 13%.
Most Americans aren’t confident that the US action in Venezuela will result in a stable government in that country a year from now, and about two-thirds say it’s at least somewhat likely that the action will lead to a long-term deployment of US troops there.
Partisan views on the initial military action in Venezuela are mirror images: 80% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents oppose the action while 80% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents support it. But Democrats are more firmly opposed to US efforts to control Venezuela’s government after Maduro’s removal and more aligned in their view of Trump’s use of the military and efforts to expand American power over other countries. A majority of Democratic-aligned Americans (58%) strongly oppose the efforts to control Venezuela’s government while just 28% of Republican-aligned Americans feel strongly in favor.
The findings also suggest most Americans see US access to Venezuelan oil and a demonstration of America’s military power as key factors in the US decision to take action in Venezuela , while fewer see some of the government’s stated reasons for action – bringing Maduro to stand trial in the US or reducing drug trafficking to the US – as major factors.
Just 26% say improving the lives of the Venezuelan people was a major factor in the US decision to act.
The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS online and by phone from January 9-12 among a random national sample of 1,209 adults. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. -CNN
