Denmark’s foreign minister said there had been a “frank but also constructive” conversation with the Trump administration during a high-stakes White House meeting about the fate of Greenland 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,” 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.
Trump told reporters after the meeting that he had not yet been briefed on the talks, but said that the United States had a good relationship with Denmark and he thought something would work out. “The problem is there’s not a thing that Denmark can do about it if Russia or China wants to occupy Greenland, but there’s everything we can do,” he said in the Oval Office.
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.
Trump continued to publicly press his case ahead of the meeting, writing on social media earlier 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.”
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.
The lack of a firm outcome 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 said it was unclear, however, whether the president’s staff members were enthusiastic about an aggressive Greenland policy and that they may try to “kick things into the long grass.”
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.
Morten Messerschmidt, chairman of the hard-right Danish People’s Party, criticized Rasmussen and Motzfeldt for “rushing” to the meeting, and said it was “essentially playing right into President Trump’s hands.”
Messerschmidt, whose party shares many viewpoints with Trump’s movement in the United States, also criticized the U.S. leader. “It is frankly unheard of for an ally to issue threats against Denmark, and it is something we will under no circumstances tolerate,” Messerschmidt wrote in an email to The Washington Post.
French President Emmanuel Macron sounded a note of caution Wednesday, saying France does “not underestimate” the U.S. declarations about Greenland, and promising to “act in full solidarity” with Denmark.
Danish officials headed into Wednesday’s meeting hoping 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 to their red line opposing U.S. annexation of Greenland, they also risked inflaming tensions.
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.
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 involvement ahead of Wednesday’s meeting. The vice president, he said in an interview beforehand, 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.”
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 by The Post.
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 this week 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.
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 rhetoric has also proved unpopular with Congress, with several bipartisan efforts to block U.S. attempts to take over Greenland introduced this week. Rasmussen and Motzfeldt, the visiting Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers, were planning to host a dinner with a variety of lawmakers Wednesday evening, a Danish official said.
Ellen Francis in Brussels, Aaron Wiener in Berlin, and Kara Voght, Natalie Allison and Scott Clement in Washington contributed to this report.
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