Hoping the United States will cool its Arctic ambitions, the top diplomats of Denmark and Greenland were set to hold high-stakes talks at the White House on Wednesday.
Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will host Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt, with the future of the vast, semi-autonomous territory on the line.
President Donald Trump has intensified his efforts to seize the strategic island from Denmark since the U.S. attack on Venezuela, vowing to do so “one way or the other” before Russia or China can. Greenland and Denmark have rejected his advances, which have stoked alarm among NATO allies in Europe.
They have also given residents of the island sleepless nights, a minister said Tuesday ahead of the talks in Washington.
A Danish official told NBC News that Vance’s involvement raises the stakes for the meeting, which was already seen by Copenhagen as a crucial moment in its effort to ease tensions with the Trump administration over the future of the island.
Rasmussen told reporters Tuesday that after their original request for a meeting with Rubio, Vance expressed interest in participating and will be hosting them at the White House.
“Our reason for seeking the meeting we have now been given was to move this whole discussion, which has not become less tense since we last met, into a meeting room where we can look each other in the eye and talk about these things,” Rasmussen added.
Rasmussen and Motzfeldt will meet with Vance and Rubio.Getty Images
Ahead of the meeting, Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen made his stance clear.
“Greenland does not want to be owned by the USA. Greenland does not want to be governed by the USA. Greenland will not be part of the USA. We choose the Greenland we know today, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Nielsen said in a joint news conference with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Copenhagen.
“Now we are faced with a geopolitical crisis, and if we have to choose between the USA and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark.”
The leaders of Denmark and Greenland put on a united front ahead of the meeting.Liselotte Sabroe / AFP via Getty Images
Asked about Nielsen’s remarks, Trump told reporters on Tuesday: “I don’t know who he is. Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him.”
Trump has repeatedly floated military action, insisting the mineral-rich island is strategically important for the U.S. despite warnings from European powers that this would implode NATO, the alliance of which both the U.S. and Denmark are members.
If he instead tries to buy Greenland the U.S. could have to pay as much as $700 billion, according to three people familiar with the cost estimate, though Denmark insists it is not for sale.
A new poll found that just 17% of Americans approve of Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland. Nearly half of respondents disapproved, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday, while 35% said they were unsure.
Only 4% of Americans said it would be a “good idea” for the U.S. to use military force to take possession of Greenland from Denmark. Some 71% thought it would be a bad idea, the poll found.
In Greenland, officials said the threats from the U.S. are causing residents to lose sleep, worried about their future.
“This is really filling the agenda and the discussions around the households,” Greenland’s minister for business and mineral resources Naaja Nathanielsen said Tuesday during a news conference in London. “So it’s a massive pressure that we are under, and people are feeling the effects of it.”
Asked whether they were expecting an offer from the U.S., Nathanielsen said Greenland did not know much more than what was publicly available in the media and they were seeking this direct dialogue to get a better understanding of the Trump administration’s proposals.
No matter what comes their way, Nathanielsen said she hoped the people of Greenland will get a say.
“For others this may might be a piece of land, but for us it’s home,” she added.
Vance toured the U.S. military’s Pituffik Space Base in Greenland in March 2025. Jim Watson / REUTERS
Europeans have been scrambling to prove to Trump that they can address his security concerns and bolster the Arctic’s defense, including a possible NATO operation in the high north. Alliance member states agree on the urgency of Arctic security, NATO chief Mark Rutte said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Wednesday that the country will open a consulate in Greenland next month, a move that had been planned since last year, as he urged the U.S. to stop “blackmailing” Greenland.