U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that he plans to meet with Danish officials next week after the Trump administration reaffirmed its intent to take control of Greenland, a strategic Arctic island that is a self-governing territory of Denmark.
In the wake of the capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump has revived his argument that the United States needs to secure the world’s largest island to protect its interests against China and Russia in the Arctic. The White House has refused to rule out using military force to acquire the territory, even as Rubio has told lawmakers the administration’s preferred path is to purchase Greenland rather than seize it.
Rubio’s comments, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, came during a classified briefing Monday evening on Capitol Hill, according to a person familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was private. On Wednesday, Rubio told reporters Trump has been considering the idea since his first term.
“That’s always been the president’s intent from the very beginning,” Rubio said. “He’s not the first U.S. president that has examined or looked at how we could acquire Greenland.”
Danish officials push for talks
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, requested a meeting with Rubio, according to a statement posted Tuesday on Greenland’s government website. Previous requests for a sit-down were unsuccessful, the statement said.
Rubio said he will meet with Danish officials next week but declined to answer whether the administration would risk the NATO alliance by pursuing a military option.
“I’m not here to talk about Denmark or military intervention,” Rubio said. “We’ll have those conversations with them then, but I don’t have anything further to add.” He added that every president retains the option to address national security threats through military means.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that using the military to acquire Greenland was “always an option,” though she emphasized Wednesday that “the president’s first option has always been diplomacy.”
NATO allies react
European leaders responded sharply to Trump’s comments. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom joined Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement reaffirming that Greenland “belongs to its people.” Frederiksen warned that a U.S. takeover would amount to the end of NATO.
“The Nordics do not lightly make statements like this,” said Maria Martisiute, a defense analyst at the European Policy Centre think tank. “But it is Trump, whose very bombastic language bordering on direct threats and intimidation, is threatening another ally by saying, ‘I will control or annex the territory.’”
Some Republican senators said they see strategic value in Greenland but stopped short of endorsing military action. Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall said he hoped “we can work out a deal,” while North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven argued talk of force had been “misconstrued.”
“One of the things about President Trump, you may have noticed, is he keeps our adversaries off balance by making sure they don’t know what we’re going to do,” Hoeven said.
But Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski criticized the tone of the debate, saying she hated “the rhetoric around either acquiring Greenland by purchase or by force,” calling it “very unsettling.”
Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, co-chairs of the bipartisan Senate NATO Observer Group, urged the administration to honor its treaty obligations.
“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,” they said in a joint statement.
Thomas Crosbie, an associate professor of military operations at the Royal Danish Defense College, said a U.S. takeover would not meaningfully improve Washington’s security posture.
“The United States will gain no advantage if its flag is flying in Nuuk versus the Greenlandic flag,” Crosbie told the AP. “They already enjoy all of the advantages they want. If there’s any specific security access they need, they’ll be given it as a matter of course, as a trusted ally.”
What happens next
Denmark’s parliament approved a bill in June allowing U.S. military bases on Danish soil, expanding a 2023 agreement with the Biden administration that gave U.S. troops broad access to Danish air bases. Denmark’s foreign minister has said the country could terminate the agreement if the U.S. tried to annex Greenland.
The Pentagon already operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, and troops there could be mobilized if ordered. Crosbie said he doubts the U.S. would engage Danish forces or harm civilians.
