When President-elect Donald Trump mused about buying Greenland from Denmark during his first administration, the Danish prime minister called the idea “absurd” and rebuffed him outright.
Now, Danish officials are being warned by Trump allies and advisers that he is serious, multiple Danish officials told CNN. And they’re carefully weighing how to respond without sparking a major rupture with a close ally and fellow NATO member.
“The ecosystem supporting this idea is totally different now” than it was in 2019, when Trump first proposed it, said one senior Danish official. “This seems much more serious,” said another senior Danish official.
Trump said on Tuesday that “we need Greenland for national security purposes.”
“People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up, because we need it for national security,” he said at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago.
Asked about Trump’s comments on Wednesday, outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “the idea expressed about Greenland is obviously not a good one, but maybe more important, it’s obviously not going to happen, so we probably shouldn’t waste a lot of time talking about it.”
Danish officials say they don’t necessarily agree — a frank conversation about Trump’s remarks, rather than assuming he isn’t serious, will likely be the only way to stave off a crisis, they told CNN.
To that end, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen signaled on Wednesday that the country wants to discuss the issue more with the incoming Trump administration.
“We are open to a dialogue with the Americans on how we can possibly cooperate even more closely than we do to ensure that the American ambitions are fulfilled,” Rasmussen told reporters. The US has long worked closely with Denmark in the Arctic and in Greenland, where the US maintains its northernmost military base.
Trump also warned on Tuesday that Denmark could face steep tariffs if it does not give up control of Greenland and refused to rule out military action to take it by force.
Also on Tuesday, Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., visited Greenland in a personal capacity — a trip that was closely watched by Danish officials but did not involve any official government meetings.
In a sign of how involved he wants to be on this issue, Trump called in to a meeting Trump Jr. had with residents of Nuuk, Greenland, on Wednesday, and said the US and the world “needs” Greenland because it is so strategically located.
Trump’s comments are already creating tension with US partners and allies. Greenland’s prime minister, Mute Egede, signaled on Tuesday that the territory does not want to engage in the political back-and-forth between the US and Denmark.
“Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland,” he said. “Our future and fight for independence is our business.”
France and Germany also responded on Wednesday, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz saying, “The principle of the inviolability of borders applies to every country… no matter whether it’s a very small one or a very powerful one,” and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said, “There is obviously no question that the European Union would let other nations of the world attack its sovereign borders.”
US officials eye Greenland’s independence push
Greenland has long been seen as key to US national security interests, particularly to repel a possible Russian attack. But during Trump’s first term, national security officials were particularly concerned about China’s activities in the Arctic, which at that point were a relatively new threat, a former senior Trump adviser told CNN.
Still, US and Danish officials say they don’t understand the incoming president’s obsession with acquiring Greenland, which Trump has called “an absolute necessity,” particularly because the US already has a decades-old defense agreement with the territory that has allowed the US to build up a significant military presence — including troops and radar systems — on the world’s largest island.
But a defense official also acknowledged that there is concern about Greenland’s drive towards independence from Denmark, a major US and NATO ally. If Greenland were to become independent, that could make the island more politically unstable — and more vulnerable to Russian and Chinese influence.
It is also “debatable” whether Greenland would still be a member of NATO if it declared independence, the official said.
“Denmark is a stalwart NATO ally, and so long as Greenland remains part of the Kingdom of Denmark, as it is now, and part of NATO, then we’re not less secure in that situation,” the official said. But the US-Greenland relationship becomes more “ambiguous” if Greenland decides to declare independence, the official said.
“It could be a good news story where it transitions into a stable sort of thing, or it could go the other way,” the official said. “And I think that’s where a lot of this conversation is coming from. We recognize that there’s some sort of transition happening amidst a geopolitical situation that we haven’t seen in quite some time. And people are asking questions.”
China’s military cooperation with Russia in the Arctic has only grown over the last five years. China and Russia regularly conduct joint air patrols there, and in October, China’s Coast Guard claimed it entered waters of the Arctic Ocean for the first time with the Russians. The Pentagon warned in its Arctic strategy last July that the collaboration has the “potential to alter the Arctic’s stability and threat picture.”
Climate change is also melting ice and opening up new waterways in the Arctic, making it even more of a hotly contested area for shipping and the projection of military power.
Still, taking over the security administration of Greenland would be a heavy lift for the US and require new investments, US and Danish officials said. The Royal Danish Navy is currently responsible for patrolling the waters around Greenland and breaking up the ice around its coastline, a responsibility the US would likely have to take on with its aging icebreaker fleet. Denmark also helps to monitor vast areas of Greenland with dog sled patrols.
The defense official said that at the very least, Trump’s comments have added urgency to an already important discussion about the Arctic’s value to US national security interests.
“It demonstrates that this place, Greenland, has tremendous geostrategic value to the world,” he said.
