COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday that the U.S. takeover Greenland will mean the end of the NATO military alliance. Her comments came in response to US President Donald Trump's new call to transfer the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island to US control following a weekend military operation in Venezuela.
In the dead of night, the operation of American troops in Caracas to seize leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife left the world stunned early Saturday and heightened concerns in Denmark and Greenland, which is a semi-autonomous territory of the Danish kingdom and therefore part of NATO.
Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart Jens Frederik Nielsen criticized the president's comments and warned of disastrous consequences. Many European leaders expressed solidarity with them.
“If the United States decides to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything will stop,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2 on Monday. “That is, including our NATO and, therefore, the security that was ensured after the end of World War II.”
The 20-day chart heightens fears
Trump has repeatedly called during his presidential transition and in the early months of his second term for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland and has not ruled out using military force to take control of the island. His comments on Sunday, including telling reporters “let's talk about Greenland in 20 days,” further fueled fears that the U.S. is planning intervention in Greenland in the near future.
Frederiksen also said Trump “should be taken seriously” when he says he wants Greenland. “We will not allow a situation where we and Greenland are threatened by such a threat,” she added.
Nielsen said at a press conference on Monday that Greenland cannot be compared to Venezuela. He called on his constituents to remain calm and united.
“We are not in a situation where we think that a takeover of the country can happen overnight, and that is why we insist on good cooperation,” he said.
Nielsen added: “The situation is not such that the United States can simply conquer Greenland.”
Ask Rostrup, a TV2 political journalist, wrote on the channel's live blog on Monday that Mette previously would have categorically rejected the idea of an American takeover of Greenland. But now, Rostrup writes, the rhetoric has escalated so much that she has to acknowledge the possibility.
Trump criticizes Denmark's efforts to ensure security in Greenland
Trump on Sunday also mocked Denmark's efforts to bolster Greenland's national security, saying the Danes had added “another dog sled” to the Arctic territory's arsenal.
“This is very strategic right now,” Trump told reporters Sunday as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships everywhere.”
He added: “We need Greenland from a national security point of view, and Denmark can’t do that.”
But Ulrik Pram Gad, a global security expert at the Danish Institute of International Studies, wrote in a report last year that “there are indeed Russian and Chinese ships in the Arctic, but these ships are too far away to be seen from Greenland with or without binoculars.”
US space base in northwest Greenland
Greenlanders and Danes were further angered this weekend by social media posts following the raid by Katie Miller, a former Trump administration official turned podcaster. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the stars and stripes with the caption: “COMING SOON.”
“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Ambassador Jesper Møller Sorensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in response to Miller, who is married to Trump's powerful deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller.
The US Department of Defense operates the remote Pituffik space base in northwest Greenland. It was built in accordance with the 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States. It supports missile warning, missile defense, and space surveillance operations for the United States and NATO.
On the Danish mainland, the partnership between the United States and Denmark has been a long one. The Danes buy US F-35 fighter jets, and just last year the Danish parliament approved a bill allowing US military bases on Danish soil.
Critics say the vote transferred Danish sovereignty to the United States. The law expands on a previous military agreement struck in 2023 with the Biden administration that gave U.S. troops broad access to Danish air bases in the Scandinavian country.
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Ciobanu reported from Warsaw, Poland, and Dazio from Berlin.
