Donald Trump has said it would be “unacceptable” for Greenland to be anything less than “in the hands” of the US, reiterating his demand to take over the Arctic island, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, hours before high-stakes talks on its future.
“The US needs Greenland for the purpose of national security. Nato should be leading the way for us to get it,” the US president said on social media. The alliance “becomes far more formidable and effective” with the territory under US control, he said.
“It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building,” he said, referring to a proposed missile defence system.
Mr Trump’s remarks came as the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers prepared to meet the US vice-president, JD Vance, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in Washington to discuss the territory amid rising tensions after weeks of US pressure.
The US president first raised the idea of a US takeover of Greenland in 2019, during his first term, but has ramped up his rhetoric significantly since returning to the White House last year, saying the US would take it “one way or the other”.
Mr Trump has jolted the EU and Nato by refusing to rule out military force to seize the strategically located, mineral-rich island, which is covered by many of the protections offered by the two organisations because Denmark belongs to both of them.
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Denmark’s foreign minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, and his Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, initially sought the talks with Mr Rubio but the meeting will take place in Washington after Mr Vance asked to attend and then to host the talks.
Greenland and Denmark have repeatedly said the territory is not for sale, that the US is exercising “unacceptable pressure” on a long-standing ally, and that a 1951 bilateral agreement already allows the US to massively expand its military presence on the island.
The Greenlandic flag with Kronborg Castle in the background in Elsinore, Denmark. Photograph: Keld Navntoft/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images
Several EU leaders have backed Denmark, pledging their support for its territorial integrity and right to self-determination. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Wednesday the island “belongs to its people”.
“For me it’s important that the Greenlanders know and they know this by the deeds, not only by the words, that we respect the wishes of the Greenlanders and their interests and that they can count on us,” she said in Brussels.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, also said that if “the sovereignty of an EU country and ally were to be affected, the knock-on effects would be unprecedented”. France was would “act in full solidarity with Denmark and its sovereignty”, he added.
The European Parliament is also considering putting on hold the EU’s implementation of the trade deal struck with the US in protest over Mr Trump’s threats.
The European Parliament has been debating legislative proposals to remove many of the EU’s import duties on US goods.
Leading members of the cross-parliamentary trade committee met to discuss the issue on Wednesday morning and decide whether to postpone the vote.
In the end, they took no decision and settled on reconvening next week.
A parliamentary source said left-leaning and centrist groups favoured taking action, such as a postponement.
A group of 23 lawmakers also urged the EU assembly’s president Roberta Metsola on Wednesday to freeze work on the agreement as long as the US administration continued its threats to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
“If we go through and approve a deal that Trump has seen as a personal victory, while he makes claims for Greenland and refuses to rule out any manner in which to achieve this, it will be easily seen as rewarding him and his actions,” the letter drafted by Danish lawmaker Per Clausen said.
People walk along a street in Nuuk, Greenland. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
Signatories were mainly fellow members of Clausen’s Left Group, but also included centre-left Social Democrats and Greens.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland are due to meet Mr Vance and Mr Rubio at about 3.30pm Irish time, and will aim to de-escalate the crisis and find a diplomatic path to satisfy US demands for more control, analysts said.
“The end goal is to find some form of accommodation, or make a deal that would satisfy that need, or at least calm down the rhetoric sufficiently from Donald Trump,” Andreas Osthagen of the Oslo-based Fridtjof Nansen Institute, said.
Noa Redington, a former adviser to previous Danish premiers, said concerns were high in Denmark and Greenland that their foreign ministers could be humiliated in the same way as Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was last February.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Wednesday found just 17 per cent of Americans approved of Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland and that substantial majorities of both Democrats and Republicans opposed using military force to annex the island. – Guardian and Reuters