Denmark, Greenland seek talks with Rubio after White House repeats it wants the island

Denmark and Greenland are seeking a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over the strategic Arctic island, a Danish territory.

Tensions escalated after the White House said on Tuesday that the “U.S. military is always an option”, even as a series of European leaders rejected President Donald Trump’s renewed calls for the US to take over Greenland, citing strategic reasons.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned earlier this week that a U.S. takeover would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance.

Also Read | France working with allies on plan should U.S. move on Greenland

“The Nordics do not lightly make statements like this,” Maria Martisiute, a defence analyst at the European Policy Centre think tank, told The Associated Press on Wednesday (January 7, 2026).

“But it is Trump, whose very bombastic language bordering on direct threats and intimidation, is threatening the fact to another ally by saying ‘I will control or annex the territory’.”

The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the U.K. joined Mr. Frederiksen in a statement Tuesday reaffirming that the mineral-rich island “belongs to its people”.

Their statement defended the sovereignty of Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark and thus part of NATO.

Mr. Trump has floated since his first term the idea of acquiring Greenland, arguing that the U.S. needs to control the world’s largest island to ensure its own security in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic.

This weekend’s U.S. military action in Venezuela has heightened fears across Europe, and Mr. Trump and his advisers in recent days have reiterated the U.S. leader’s desire to take over the island, which guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.

“It’s so strategic right now,” Mr. Trump told reporters Sunday (January 4, 2026) .

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, have requested a meeting with Mr. Rubio in the near future, according to a statement posted on Tuesday (January 6) to Greenland’s government website. Previous requests for a sit-down were not successful, the statement said.

While most U.S. Republicans have supported Mr. Trump’s statement, Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis, the Democratic and Republican co-chairs of the bipartisan Senate NATO Observer Group, blasted Mr. Trump’s rhetoric in a statement on Tuesday.

“When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honour its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” the statement said.

“Any suggestion that our nation would subject a fellow NATO ally to coercion or external pressure undermines the very principles of self-determination that our Alliance exists to defend.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said he spoke by phone on Tuesday with Mr. Rubio, who dismissed the idea of a Venezuela-style operation in Greenland.

“In the United States, there is massive support for the country belonging to NATO – a membership that, from one day to the next, would be compromised by… any form of aggressiveness toward another member of NATO,” Mr. Barrot told France Inter radio Wednesday.

Asked if he has a plan in case Trump does claim Greenland, Mr. Barrot said he won’t engage in “fiction diplomacy”.