{"id":496241,"date":"2026-01-06T10:16:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/496241\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T10:16:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:16:15","slug":"danish-leader-warns-american-takeover-of-greenland-could-end-nato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/496241\/","title":{"rendered":"Danish leader warns American takeover of Greenland could end NATO"},"content":{"rendered":"

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) \u2014 Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday an American takeover of Greenland<\/a> would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance. Her comments came in response to U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s renewed call for the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island to come under U.S. control in the aftermath of the weekend military operation in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

The dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas to capture leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> and his wife early Saturday left the world stunned, and heightened concerns in Denmark and Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of the Danish kingdom and thus part of NATO.<\/p>\n

Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart, Jens Frederik Nielsen, blasted the president\u2019s comments and warned of catastrophic consequences. Numerous European leaders expressed solidarity with them. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,\u201d Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2 on Monday. \u201cThat is, including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War.\u201d<\/p>\n

20-day timeline deepens fears <\/p>\n

Trump called repeatedly during his presidential transition and the early months of his second term for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has not ruled out military force to take control of the island. His comments Sunday, including telling reporters \u201clet\u2019s talk about Greenland in 20 days,\u201d further deepened fears that the U.S. was planning an intervention in Greenland in the near future.<\/p>\n

Frederiksen also said Trump \u201cshould be taken seriously\u201d when he says he wants Greenland. \u201cWe will not accept a situation where we and Greenland are threatened in this way,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Nielsen, in a news conference Monday, said Greenland cannot be compared to Venezuela. He urged his constituents to stay calm and united.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not in a situation where we think that there might be a takeover of the country overnight and that is why we are insisting that we want good cooperation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nielsen added: \u201cThe situation is not such that the United States can simply conquer Greenland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ask Rostrup, a TV2 political journalist, wrote on the station\u2019s live blog Monday that Mette previously would have flatly rejected the idea of an American takeover of Greenland. But now, Rostrup wrote, the rhetoric has escalated so much that she has to acknowledge the possibility.<\/p>\n

Trump slams Denmark\u2019s security efforts in Greenland<\/p>\n

Trump on Sunday also mocked Denmark\u2019s efforts at boosting Greenland\u2019s national security posture, saying the Danes have added \u201cone more dog sled\u201d to the Arctic territory\u2019s arsenal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so strategic right now,\u201d Trump had told reporters Sunday as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. \u201cGreenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Ulrik Pram Gad, a global security expert from the Danish Institute for International Studies, wrote in a report last year that \u201cthere are indeed Russian and Chinese ships in the Arctic, but these vessels are too far away to see from Greenland with or without binoculars.\u201d <\/p>\n

U.S. space base in northwestern Greenland<\/p>\n

Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled this weekend by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: \u201cSOON.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,\u201d Ambassador Jesper M\u00f8ller S\u00f8rensen, Denmark\u2019s chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump\u2019s influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Defense operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland. It was built following a 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States. It supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.<\/p>\n

On Denmark\u2019s mainland, the partnership between the U.S. and Denmark has been long-lasting. The Danes buy American F-35 fighter jets and just last year, Denmark\u2019s parliament approved a bill to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil.<\/p>\n

Critics say the vote ceded Danish sovereignty to the U.S. The legislation widens a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where U.S. troops had broad access to Danish air bases in the Scandinavian country.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Ciobanu reported from Warsaw, Poland, and Dazio from Berlin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) \u2014 Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday an American takeover of Greenland would amount…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":496242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[29062,29739,69,57,8298,51,223240,223239,59917,8132,8959,50,92550,8961,80,11203,52,67,370,93,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-496241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-denmark","9":"tag-denmark-government","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-greenland","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-jens-frederik-nielsen","15":"tag-jesper-mller-srensen","16":"tag-katie-miller","17":"tag-military-and-defense","18":"tag-nato","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-nicolas-maduro","21":"tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organization","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-stephen-miller","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-united-states-government","27":"tag-washington-news","28":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115847638822630262","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}