Trump reiterates desire for Greenland following high-stakes diplomatic meeting |
WASHINGTON/NUUK (Reuters) — US President Donald Trump reiterated on Wednesday that the US needs Greenland and that Denmark cannot be relied upon to protect the island, even as he said that “something will work out” with respect to the future governance of the Danish overseas territory.
The remarks, which came after a high-stakes meeting between US, Danish and Greenlandic officials, indicate that there are still fundamental, if not intractable, differences between how Washington, Copenhagen and Nuuk see the political future of the island.
“Greenland is very important for the national security, including of Denmark,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “And 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. You found that out last week with Venezuela,” he said.
After meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance at the White House on Wednesday, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt said the US and Denmark would form a working group to discuss a broad array of concerns regarding the island that could meet in the coming weeks.
But they also made clear that Washington had not budged on its position that it must acquire Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark that is strategically located and rich in minerals. Rasmussen and Motzfeldt described such an outcome as an unacceptable breach of sovereignty.
“We didn’t manage to change the American position,” Rasmussen told reporters outside the Danish embassy in Washington. “It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.”
Trump has not ruled out taking Greenland by force. Before the two-hour meeting, he argued on social media that NATO would become far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the US. “Anything less than that is........