Denmark summoned the head of the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen on Wednesday after allegations emerged that three Americans with ties to President Trump were running “covert influence operations” in Greenland.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that he wants the United States to “get” Greenland, a huge, strategically important island, mostly in the Arctic, that is a territory of Denmark.
The allegations were published by Denmark’s main public broadcaster on Wednesday morning. Within hours, the Danish Foreign Ministry summoned the current head of the embassy, the chargé d’affaires, for a meeting.
“We are aware that foreign actors continue to show an interest in Greenland,” Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s foreign minister, said. “Any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the kingdom will of course be unacceptable.”
Mr. Rasmussen called the summons a “preventive conversation.”
It was the second time in recent months that the Danes have summoned an American envoy over issues concerning Greenland. This spring, news outlets reported that American intelligence agencies had been tasked with gathering more information on Greenland, specifically its independence movement and public attitudes toward American resource extraction. Soon after that story broke, the lead American diplomat was called in.
According to the report published by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, three Americans, including two who were said to have previously worked for President Trump, have traveled back and forth to Greenland gathering information and cultivating contacts as part of the “covert influence operations.”
The report did not name the Americans and relied on anonymous Danish officials. There was no immediate response from the Trump administration, whose relationship with Denmark keeps finding new lows.
Denmark has repeatedly rejected Mr. Trump’s insistence that the United States take over Greenland. Mr. Trump has been pushing the idea for years, first offering to buy the island from Denmark and then, when that did not work, threatening to acquire it “one way or the other” and refusing to rule out using military force.
Greenland, with a population of fewer than 60,000, is loaded with resources including critical minerals, which have attracted the interest of top officials in the Trump administration. It also served as a base for American military operations during World War II and the Cold War. There is still a remote American installation on the northern side of the island.
Most Greenlanders do not want to join the United States, according to recent polls, though many have voiced aspirations to break off from Denmark and become an independent country.
The Danish Broadcasting Corporation reported that the three Americans were trying to exploit these divisions. One of them was drawing up lists of Greenlanders who could be recruited into a secessionist movement. The other two, according to the report, were trying to develop relationships with politicians, business figures and ordinary citizens. All this was done, the report said, to weaken Greenland’s ties to Denmark and draw the island closer to Washington.
Danish officials declined to identify the three men in the report or say how or if they were connected to Trump allies who have been scouring Greenland for business deals in recent months.
President Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., visited Greenland in January, to rally support for Mr. Trump and for various business projects. The effort did not seem to go anywhere; the organizers ended up recruiting people off the street to attend a celebratory dinner.
Another American businessman, Tom Dans, who was an adviser to Mr. Trump on Arctic affairs in his first term, recently founded a small nonprofit organization to promote closer U.S. ties with Greenland. Last fall Mr. Dans sponsored Jorgen Boassen, a former bricklayer from Greenland who has become an advocate for closer ties with the United States, to participate in Trump campaign events. Mr. Boassen has gone on to become one of Mr. Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters on the island, though he is reviled as a traitor by many Greenlanders.
In an interview in February, Mr. Dans said that he had no role in the Trump Administration but that he continues to “consult with them” along with others. He also joked that he and Mr. Trump share a “Vulcan mind meld.”
Drew Horn is another member of Mr. Trump’s circle who has been involved in Greenland. A former adviser to Mr. Trump and other Republican officials, Mr. Horn is now heading the rare earths company GreenMet.
Earlier this year, he led a delegation of American investors to Greenland. The purpose, according to the company, was to “advance projects in the energy, infrastructure, and technology sectors, in coordination with efforts at the White House and in Congress to secure critical supply chains.”
Mr. Horn said he does not work for President Trump anymore, but in an interview in April he said that he was “looking to support the president and the administration’s goals.”
The flurry of American attention on Greenland, private and official, seems to be only deepening the divide between Washington and Copenhagen.
“For a long time they have been trying to walk that difficult line between being very close allies and having huge disagreements at the same time,” said Niels Thulesen Dahl, a political analyst at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. “The Danish government has basically just been waiting for something like this to happen again.”
Jeffrey Gettleman is an international correspondent based in London covering global events. He has worked for The Times for more than 20 years.
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