The Trump administration’s cloak-and-dagger capture of Nicolás Maduro and airstrikes on Venezuelan military facilities have raised concerns in Europe that the president could follow through on his repeated threats to annex Greenland.
Those fears were fanned by Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s influential deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who tweeted a picture of the semi-autonomous Danish territory covered by the American flag and the caption: “Soon.”
Mrs Miller is a prominent America First social media personality in her own right and the post prompted a rash of mocking memes about a US takeover of Greenland from other Maga supporters.
Copenhagen was sufficiently rattled for the Danish prime minister to urge the US to stop making threats over Greenland.
“It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the US needing to take over Greenland,” Mette Frederiksen said. “The US has no right to annex any of the three countries in the Danish Kingdom.
“I would therefore strongly urge the US to stop the threats against a historically close ally and against another country and another people, who have very clearly said that they are not for sale.”
On Sunday Jesper Moller Sorensen, the Danish ambassador in Washington, issued a public “friendly reminder” that Denmark expected “full respect” for its territorial integrity as a close ally of the US.
In addition, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the prime minister of Greenland, called Miller’s X post “disrespectful”.
“Relations between nations and peoples are built on mutual respect and international law — not on symbolic gestures that disregard our status and our rights,” he wrote on X.
However, he also said “there is neither reason for panic nor for concern. Our country is not for sale, and our future is not decided by social media posts”.
The Swedish prime minister backed Denmark, saying that Stockholm “fully stands up for our neighbouring country”.
Ulf Kristersson posted on X: “It is only Denmark and Greenland that have the right to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland. Sweden fully stands up for our neighbouring country.”
The US, Denmark and Sweden are all members of Nato.
Asked what the US military action in Venezuela signalled for Greenland, Trump told The Atlantic: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.
“But we do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defence.”
Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a powerful and semi-official envoy of President Putin to the US, added fuel to the fire with a satirical tweet suggesting the European response to Maduro’s downfall had been so supine that Greenland might be next.
The recently revised US national security strategy identified the restoration of “American preeminence” in the western hemisphere as its top regional priority.
Nuuk, the capital of Greenland
LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES
While it did not explicitly mention Greenland, Trump and his administration have repeatedly indicated that they regard the Arctic island as an integral element of homeland defence and a natural part of the US sphere of influence.
Greenland has been under Danish control since the early 18th century but gained home rule in 1979 and withdrew from the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the European Union, six years after that. Today Greenland’s government has autonomy over most domains outside of defence and foreign policy.
The relationship has been marred by a series of scandals over the excesses of Danish colonial rule, the most recent of which involved the insertion of contraceptive devices into women in Greenland without their consent.
Polls consistently show an overwhelming majority of Greenlanders favour full independence from Denmark, although most of the island’s main political parties take a gradualist approach to the issue.
The US has recognised the island’s strategic importance since the mid-19th century and exercised considerable sway over it during the Second World War.
Both Donald Trump Jr and JD Vance, the vice-president, paid visits to Greenland last year and the Danish security services have investigated suspicions that agitators with links to the White House have been attempting to stir up pro-American sentiment in the population.
Donald Trump Jr in Nuuk last January
REUTERS
Shortly before Christmas, Trump named Jeff Landry, the Republican governor of Louisiana, as his “special envoy” for Greenland. Landry, 55, has little discernible foreign policy experience but has proved himself fiercely loyal to the president.
Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, said that the intervention in Venezuela had shown that Washington was “deadly serious in its stated plans to dominate and control the western hemisphere”. He added: “Take the threats against Greenland very seriously indeed.”