Norwegian leaders are making it clear that they continue to strongly support their Danish counterparts’ efforts to defend the Kingdom of Denmark, which has sovereignty over Denmark, Greenland and the Færoe Islands. US Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, they say, would not only be another US violation of the Rule of Law but also a violation of the NATO pact.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen are shown here at NATO’s 75th anniversary celebration in 2024. Now many are wondering whether NATO would survive the US’ threatened annexation of Greenland, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, the US’ own NATO ally. PHOTO: SMK/Torbjørn Kjosvold
“My starting point is that it won’t happen,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told newspaper Aftenposten after Trump claimed once again that “we need Greenland.” Trump’s latest remarks to reporters came just after he’d ordered a military intervention in Venezuela that Norway called a violation of the Rule of Law.
Trump’s remarks also prompted Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to quickly respond that the “USA has no right to annex one of the three countries in our kingdom.” That further prompted Norway’s own prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, to confirm his support for Frederiksen on national radio Monday morning.
“We have to speak out about how Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and its (future) is up to the Danes and the Greenlanders,” Støre said on state broadcaster NRK’s popular morning talkshow Politisk kvarter. The program had invited both Støre and the head of the opposition in the Norwegian Parliament, Sylvi Listhaug of the right-wing Progress Party, to a New Year’s debate that took a new turn after Trump’s remarks during the night before.
Listhaug and Støre are usually at odds on most issues, but in this case, she firmly supported both Støre and Denmark. Listhaug called Trump’s grab for Greenland “completely unacceptable” and stressed that “international rules” must apply.
“We are completely in agreement that no one can just help themselves in this manner, and we stand fully behind the fact that Greenland belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark,” Listhaug said. She stressed, meanwhile, a need to keep the US as an ally and urged Støre’s government “to work with the US Congress to secure the trans-Atlantic cooperation.”
Trump has claimed that US possession of Greenland is necessary to ensure US security, but since the US has long had a major military presence on Greenland in cooperation with both Greenland and Denmark, few believe actual possession is needed for defense purposes. Trump is believed to rather be most keen on gaining control over Greenland’s natural resources including lucrative precious metals important for the high-tech industry.
The fact that all the Scandinavian and Nordic countries are members of NATO along with the US, with Norway and Denmark among NATO’s 12 founding members in 1949, makes the serious conflict over Greenland especially awkward. Asked what it would mean for NATO, the Norwegian Foreign Minister Eide told Aftenposten he still hopes it won’t go through, but “such a situation has never had to be handled before, so I don’t have a good answer.”
He added, however, that a US annexation of a fellow NATO ally’s territory would mean “that the idea about NATO would be broken. It would be a violation of the NATO pact. It’s difficult to see such a conflict between NATO countries, and how the alliance should tolerate it.”
Eide was referring to how Article 1 of the NATO pact obliges member countries in NATO to solve international disputes peacefully and without use of threat and force. He said he was in close contact with Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and supporting him. Rasmussen has responded angrily to the Trump Administration, while Greenlanders have branded Trump’s attempted takeover as “frightening” and “direspectful,” as was a picture of Greenland covered by a US flag that was posted on social media during the weekend by the wife of Trump strategist Stephen Miller.
Neither Miller nor Trump have ruled out the use of military force if Trump moves forward with his threatened annexation. That was a point of contention when CNN interviewed Stephen Miller on Monday. Miller claimed that in order “to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO’s interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States.” He called that “a conversation we’re gonna have as a country, a process we’re gonna have as a community of nations.”
Miller refused to answer whether the US would resort to military force, or rule it out, opting to ridicule the CNN anchor and chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper instead, and accuse Tapper of simply trying to get a “catchy headline.” Tapper responded by saying he was just trying to get an answer, which was not forthcoming.
“What do you mean by ‘military force,’?” asked Miller instead. “Greenland has a population of 30,000, Jake … the real question is with what right does Denmark control Greenland? It’s not even necessary to think or talk about this in the context you ask about, a military operation. No one is going to fight against the United States over the future of Greenland.”
The Danes can point to their own right to Greenland through their national sovereignty laws, and that the population of Greenland is nearly twice what Miller claimed: 57,000. Military experts and researchers in Denmark also deny Trump’s claim that Chinese and Russian ships are lurking all around Greenland, calling it an attempt to legitimize his takeover attempt. The Danish Parliament’s foreign affairs committee was calling in members for a crisis meeting Tuesday night.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund