Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said he plans to meet with Danish officials next week to discuss the future of Greenland as European leaders push back against threats from the Trump administration to take the island, a semiautonomous Danish territory.
Mr. Rubio’s comment to reporters on Wednesday came after the Trump administration revived its push to acquire Greenland, apparently emboldened by the U.S. raid in Venezuela and capture of ousted president Nicolás Maduro.
Mr. Rubio told lawmakers this week that President Trump plans to buy Greenland rather than invade it. Yet in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance again declined to rule out the use of military force. In response to a question about what the United States would do to get Greenland, Mr. Vance said President Trump was “willing to go as far as he has to” to “defend American interests.”
In the interview, Mr. Vance also echoed Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly said that the island is vital for American national security and that Denmark is not doing enough to protect it. In a show of solidarity with Greenland and Denmark, European leaders said in a statement on Tuesday that Arctic security was a key priority and could be achieved only by upholding principles in the United Nations Charter of “sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders.”
Vivian Motzfeldt, Greenland’s foreign minister, said on Facebook on Tuesday that the governments of Denmark and Greenland had requested an urgent meeting with Mr. Rubio because of the “increasingly outspoken statements regarding Greenland.”
She said that a previous request for a meeting had gone unanswered. “It is important that all parties involved are given the opportunity to express their views directly and openly,” she wrote.
Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister of business and natural resources, told DealBook on Wednesday that under U.S. pressure, the country felt like it was moving toward “a point of no return.”
The Danish foreign ministry said that it could not immediately confirm whether a meeting with Mr. Rubio would take place.
Greenland is a sparsely populated, semiautonomous territory that falls under the sovereign boundaries of Denmark, a member of NATO.
Mr. Trump first said publicly that he wanted to buy Greenland in 2019, during his first term. After his re-election in 2024, the president suggested the United States could use force to acquire the island. High-profile visits from Trump administration officials followed. Last month, tensions grew when Mr. Trump appointed a special envoy to the territory, Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, who said he would work “to make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
The Trump administration’s latest threats have alarmed not only Denmark and Greenland, but also European leaders in the NATO alliance.
Any American attack on Greenland would destroy the NATO alliance, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark warned on Monday, and a purchase appears unlikely. Denmark does not have the authority to sell the territory, and Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, has repeatedly scoffed at the idea, reiterating this week: “Our country is not for sale.”
A Cold War-era treaty already gives the Americans wide latitude to increase their military presence there. Yet there has been no such official American request to do so, said Jens Adser Sorensen, a former senior official in Denmark’s parliament.
Amelia Nierenberg is a Times reporter covering international news from London.
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