Annexing Greenland, Alaska? That’s a fake Trump post
President Donald Trump has discussed making Greenland and Canada part of the U.S. But one viral social media post made it look like he’s also musing about annexing Alaska, a state that joined the union more than 66 years ago.
“After I’ve annexed Greenland and making it the 52nd State, I will annexe Alaska,” read a typo-riddled Truth Social post styled as Trump had written it. “The people of Alaska don’t want to be part of a backward nation in Canada. I will make all Alaskan’s rich and prosperous when they become the 53rd State of our mighty country. Nobody in Greenland or Alaska would ever have dreamed of this under Crooked Joe Biden.”
One Threads user shared the screenshot March 15, writing, “Next time, can we PLEASE require presidential candidates to take a US Citizenship test, if only to make sure they know the names of the 50 states???”
Alaska became the 49th U.S. state in 1959.
Screenshots of the purported Trump post were also shared on Facebook and X.
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The posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)
(Screenshot from Threads)
Since his reelection, Trump has talked about the United States acquiring Greenland. He argued the autonomous Danish territory and the Panama Canal were critical to national and economic security — at one point refusing to rule out the possibility of using military or economic force to take control of either region.
But there’s no evidence Trump posted the comments from the screenshot which reference a time “after I’ve annexed Greenland” or when he would annex Alaska.
We searched Trump’s Truth, a searchable archive of Trump’s Truth Social comments, and found no trace of such a post. Trump’s Truth is a project of Defending Democracy Together, a group formed by conservative Trump critics.
We also used the news organization Roll Call’s database to search all of Trump’s social media posts — including both Truth Social and X posts — and we found no posts containing the phrase “annexed Greenland.”
Other news organizations reported that the post was fabricated.
We rate claims that Trump shared a post that said, “After I’ve annexed Greenland and making it the 52nd State, I will annexe Alaska” False.
