Denmark’s foreign minister said there had been a “frank but also constructive” conversation with the Trump administration in a high-stakes meeting about Greenland at the White House on Wednesday, but that the two sides had come to no agreement about President Donald Trump’s demands to “own” the Arctic territory.
“We still have a fundamental disagreement” about the future of Greenland, said Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the top Danish diplomat, speaking alongside his Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, outside the Danish Embassy in Washington. “We didn’t manage to change the American position.”
The White House meeting, which was hosted by Vice President JD Vance, did see the two sides agree to form a “high-level working group” to discuss Trump’s concerns about Greenland, Rasmussen said. The White House and State Department did not immediately provide their own readout of the meeting, which was also attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The governments of Denmark and Greenland, a self-governing territory that remains part of the Danish realm, requested a meeting initially with Rubio, Danish officials said. They did so last week after a series of provocative statements from Trump and at least one senior aide, who have suggested the United States could use military force to seize the territory of approximately 57,000 people.
Ahead of the meeting, Trump reiterated Greenland’s importance, writing on social media Wednesday that “the United States needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security” and saying that its strategic Arctic location made it necessary for the proposed Golden Dome missile defense system he wants to build. “NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES. Anything less than that is unacceptable.”
He warned that if the U.S. doesn’t take over Greenland, Russia or China will.
In an apparent response to Trump’s security criticisms, Denmark and Greenland announced Wednesday that there would be “an expanded military presence in and around Greenland” in cooperation with NATO allies. “The purpose is to train the ability to operate under the unique Arctic conditions and to strengthen the alliance’s footprint in the Arctic, benefiting both European and transatlantic security,” the Danish Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on social media that “several officers” from the Swedish armed forces were also arriving in Greenland on Wednesday, along with others from “several allied countries.” Danish officials did not say which other countries were involved.
The lack of firm outcomes from the Washington meeting was not unexpected. Speaking on Tuesday, Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former State Department official, said it was unlikely that any compromise could be found. “Frankly, the Danish have already offered everything that the Americans say they want and they have been refused,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro, however, said it was unclear if the president’s staff members were enthusiastic about an aggressive Greenland policy and that they may try to “kick things into the long grass” so the president is distracted.
Wednesday’s talks were expected to take place at the State Department, but the venue was changed after Vance expressed a desire to be included, said two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the diplomatic engagement.
Some European officials, who had hoped Wednesday’s meeting would provide a forum to seek clarity from Rubio about the administration’s policy toward Greenland, expressed apprehension ahead of the talks, citing Vance’s planned involvement.
The vice president has been critical and dismissive of America’s traditional allies, including those in NATO. His scolding speech at a security conference in Germany early last year remains a sore subject on the continent — as does his Oval Office upbraiding of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who had come to Washington days later seeking a commitment from the administration as his country’s depleted military was losing ground to invading Russian forces.
Rasmussen and Motzfeldt could be walking into a “lion’s den,” Morten Messerschmidt, chairman of the hard-right Danish People’s Party, told Denmark’s public broadcaster, adding that it was hard for him to see how “anything good” could come of the talks.
French President Emmanuel Macron sounded a note of caution on Wednesday, saying France does “not underestimate” the U.S. declarations on Greenland, and promising to “act in full solidarity” with Denmark.
“If the sovereignty of a European and allied country were affected, the cascading consequences would be unprecedented,” Macron said, according to a French government spokeswoman.
Danish officials headed into Wednesday’s meeting with a red line that may be exceedingly difficult — if not impossible — to align with Washington’s demands: Copenhagen has offered deeper military and economic cooperation with the U.S., but its leaders stridently oppose Trump’s insistence that they hand over control of Greenland, a territory that has been part of the Danish kingdom for centuries.
They hoped to steer their conversation with the U.S. administration back toward what they considered was a more cooperative track through much of last year, European diplomats said. But some worried that in holding firm, they also risk inflaming tensions with Vance or Rubio.
Any U.S. move to punish Denmark could spark European countermeasures against Washington and a quick transatlantic escalation. Or, in a situation that would also be damaging for Denmark and NATO, it could split Europe over how best to respond, unleashing a separate set of challenges about the future of the alliance.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned Wednesday that a U.S. takeover of Greenland would hamper, not help, security objectives in the Arctic, where Russia and China each pose a threat to Western allies.
“A sustainable response for Washington cannot consist of annexing Greenland in grave violation of the fundamental principles of international cooperation,” Pistorius wrote in a guest column in the German newspaper Die Zeit. “Instead, the U.S. administration should recognize that joint defense of security in the Arctic and North Atlantic best serves the legitimate interests of the United States.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen insisted Wednesday that it was “up to Denmark and Greenland, and only to them, to decide” on matters concerning them.
Vance has offered a dim assessment of the Danish government’s handling of Greenland, telling Fox News last week, “I think the president’s willing to go as far as he has to” to secure U.S. interests in Greenland.
The vice president waded into Greenland policy last year, making a brief visit to the Arctic island in March. Vance did not meet with Danish or Greenlandic officials during his trip, but he tweaked officials in Copenhagen by saying that the U.S. would better manage the mineral-rich and strategically important territory.
“Denmark hasn’t done a good job at keeping Greenland safe,” the vice president asserted during his trip.
Tom Dans, whom Trump appointed as head of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, defended Vance’s planned involvement in Wednesday’s meeting. The vice president, he said in an interview, is “the one who originally carried the torch” to Greenland at Trump’s direction and he “deserves a share of the honor in whatever happens.”
Vance’s attendance at Wednesday’s meeting, Dans added, “adds additional weight to the whole matter.”
Though Rubio serves both as secretary of state and White House national security adviser, two of the most important roles in U.S. foreign policy, to date he has not publicly played a leading role on Greenland policy.
Speaking to lawmakers during a classified briefing last week, Rubio said the president’s goal was to purchase the territory rather than seize it militarily, according to previous reporting from The Washington Post.
Later, Rubio told reporters that all presidents retain the right to take military action. He compared the situation with Greenland to that of Venezuela, where Rubio played a leading role in organizing a military-led operation to capture President Nicolás Maduro.
People familiar with the discussions, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private planning, said the Trump administration had not seriously discussed a military operation to seize Greenland. Officials in Greenland and Denmark have said, though, that the problem they have isn’t just the specter of a U.S. invasion but that Washington was moving to impose its will on Greenland’s residents — most of whom, opinion polls show, have no desire to be annexed by the United States.
“Greenland is not for sale,” Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said Tuesday in Copenhagen, adding: “Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.”
“We choose the Greenland we know today, which is part of the kingdom of Denmark,” Nielsen added.
Drew Horn, a former official in the first Trump administration who now leads GreenMet, a Washington-based company that works on critical minerals and supply chain issues, called the Greenlandic premier’s comments “irresponsible” given the scale of investment and support the U.S. could offer.
“This is not a question of forcing Greenland to ‘choose’ between the U.S. and Denmark, when the population of Greenland has made it overwhelmingly clear that they want to advance their own national interests,” Horn said.
Told Tuesday that Greenland’s prime minister had declared his desire that same day to remain with Denmark, Trump responded: “That’s their problem. I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him.”
Trump has spoken of his desire for the U.S. to own Greenland since his first term in office. The idea remains persistently unpopular with Americans, however. An Economist-YouGov poll published Tuesday found wide opposition to attempts to take Greenland under U.S. control through military action or through payments to Greenlanders, with more than two-thirds of Americans against both ideas.
The poll found little support even among people who identified as Trump voters, with just 30 percent saying they were in favor of paying Greenlanders and 17 percent in favor of military action.
Ellen Francis in Brussels, Aaron Wiener in Berlin, and Natalie Allison and Scott Clement contributed to this report.
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