Greenland’s government advised households on Wednesday to have enough supplies for five days in case of a crisis, as President Trump told European leaders that he would not use military force to take the semiautonomous Danish territory.
Greenland said it published the crisis preparedness brochure, which made no mention of Mr. Trump, in response to repeated power outages and in order to “strengthen the security of the population and to ensure that society’s overall preparedness is even stronger.” Greenland’s government, trying to project calm, said it began preparing the brochure last year.
“The publication of the brochure with practical and simple advice for households is not an expression that we expect a crisis,” Peter Borg, Greenland’s minister who oversees self-sufficiency, said in a statement.
Still, the new advice is coming out as the icebound island faces an urgent geopolitical crisis, as Mr. Trump repeatedly threatened to seize it for the United States.
On Tuesday, Mute B. Egede, Greenland’s finance minister and deputy prime minister, said the government was reviewing its crisis preparedness during a news conference alongside Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the prime minister, who told reporters that he could not rule out an American attack.
Greenland’s brochure follows similar guidance from Nordic governments. In 2024, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway updated their advice for how to survive war and other crises.
Then, though, their main fear was Russia.
Now, many of those same governments are also concerned about the United States, one of their oldest and most stalwart allies.
And even though Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that he would not use force to take Greenland, his winding speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, left several analysts with many questions and concerns.
“What’s he going to do then?” said Anders Puck Nielsen, a Danish naval commander and a military analyst at the Royal Danish Defense College.
Commander Nielsen said Mr. Trump had few options.
“No matter what he does, the answer is going to continue to be ‘no,’” Commander Nielsen said.
“I don’t see anything really indicating any kind of solution to this,” he said, adding, “We’re going to end up in the ‘or else’ category of this, and it’s still totally unclear what that ‘else’ is.”
Hours after his remarks on Wednesday, Mr. Trump backed down from at least one threat over Greenland.
He wrote on social media that he had met with Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, and that the leaders had formed a “framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region.” Mr. Trump said that because of this framework, which he did not detail, he would no longer be imposing tariffs on allies who refused to heed his demands to control Greenland.
Amelia Nierenberg is a Times reporter covering international news from London.
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