BATON ROUGE — Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry wrote in an op-ed piece in the New York Times on Thursday that Greenland cannot be secure without the United States.

President Donald Trump last year named Landry as his "special envoy" to Greenland.

At the time, Landry said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that his role was to make Greenland a part of the United States in line with the president's wishes. But Landry wasn't present for a meeting this month among Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark.

Greenland is a self-governing territory within the Danish Realm. 

Since Landry's appointment, Trump has toned down rhetoric that Europeans feared was an American plot against a fellow member of the North American Treaty Organization. Now, Trump says, he has the "framework of a deal" similar to mid-20th century agreements that give the U.S. the right to place military bases on the island.

In his essay Thursday, Landry said the proposed deal would "expand America's operational freedom."

"These measures are not provocative — they are preventive," Landry wrote. "They would ensure that the United States, not its adversaries, sets the rules in one of the world's most strategically consequential regions in perpetuity."

The governor also invoked the Monroe Doctrine, a warning from President James A. Monroe in 1823 against continued European influence in the Americas.

"Greenland fits squarely within that doctrine," Landrdy wrote. "Greenland sits roughly equidistant between Washington and Moscow. .It ... lies along Arctic shipping routes that China and Russia are aggressively seeking to avoid."