Since the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US forces, discussion has resurfaced regarding US President Donald Trump’s desire to take control of Greenland, which belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark. This has raised genuine fears that Washington may move militarily to seize the island or use political leverage to force Europe to submit to Trump’s demands.
In this article, Shane Harris, an American journalist and writer for The Atlantic, Isaac Stanley Becker, an investigative journalist at The Washington Post, and Jonathan Lemire, correspondent and writer for The Atlantic, examine the repercussions of Trump’s recent statements, public opinion trends in Denmark and Greenland, including supporters of joining the United States, and the potential fracture this issue could cause within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
Danish officials believe they understand how US President Donald Trump might move to take control of Greenland, which falls under Danish sovereignty. In a late night post on the Truth Social platform, Trump could announce that the Danish territory is now under US protection. Since neither Denmark nor its European allies possess the military capability to prevent the United States from taking the island, they would be unable to resist Trump’s dubious claim.
Based on the logic of possession as ownership, Trump may simply declare Greenland to be US property, nothing more. But when the leading state within NATO claims territory belonging to another member state of the same alliance, NATO would be effectively paralysed.
This chain of events, outlined to us in recent months by Danish officials and security experts, seemed like fantasy until the beginning of this year. However, after the overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Trump’s subsequent insistence that the United States is now “running” Venezuela, the scenario of seizing Greenland no longer appears imaginary.
For months, Danes have anxiously anticipated a bold move by the Trump administration to annex Greenland, whether by force, coercion, or attempts to win over the local population of approximately 56,000 people by offering them shares in future mining revenues.
Today, these fears have reached their peak. Shortly after US forces arrested Maduro, Katie Miller, a former White House official and wife of Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s senior advisers, posted a map of Greenland on the X platform covered with the US flag and accompanied by a single word: “Soon”. Danish officials told us they were angry and disturbed by the post. Then, in an interview with our colleague Michael Scherer, Trump reaffirmed his intention to annex Greenland, saying: “We really need Greenland, no question”.
European leaders had long downplayed Trump’s expansionist tendencies and tried to ignore his statements, but not after what happened in Venezuela. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in an interview with Danish Broadcasting Corporation that the US president’s threats are serious: “Unfortunately, I think the American president should be taken seriously when he says he wants Greenland”.
For their part, US officials and Trump allies we spoke to downplayed the likelihood of military action in Greenland. Stephen Miller said in an interview on CNN that such action would not be necessary at all: “No one is going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland”, reiterating that the territory should be American.
Trump, however, has not explicitly ruled out seizing Greenland by force. If the United States were to take this path, NATO would effectively cease to exist the moment the first US soldier set foot on Greenlandic territory. This was confirmed by Frederiksen, who said on Danish radio: “If the United States attacks another NATO member, everything will be over”. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul also told journalists during a visit to Lithuania that Greenland is covered by Article Five of the alliance charter, which states that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all, obliging others to respond: “Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Since Denmark is a NATO member, Greenland is in principle covered by the alliance’s defence”.
But how would this work in practice? One European official responded bluntly: “We will not be able to defend Greenland. Are you joking?”
Greenlanders Who Support Trump
Meanwhile, supporters of Trump’s ambitions toward Greenland have felt emboldened after the Venezuela operation and the president’s renewed commitment to their cause. Jorgen Boassen, the most prominent and vocal pro Trump figure in Greenland, told us: “I think this is a great opportunity and a new beginning for Greenland with Trump’s interest”. Boassen is known for collecting MAGA hats and wearing shirts bearing Trump’s image. He added that Greenlanders yearn for independence from Denmark and from the “Danish elites” in Greenland who do not speak the local language or understand the local culture.
Regardless of these longstanding divisions, opinion polls show no broad support in Greenland for replacing the Danish flag with the American one. Boassen insisted, however, that many Greenlanders fear openly expressing support for joining the United States due to potential professional and political repercussions. He claimed Danish authorities shut down his Facebook page, his main platform for promoting support for Trump’s policies. Boassen also said that “Trump has heard about people’s suffering, and at this moment he is like a saviour to us”.
European leaders see the situation very differently after what happened in Venezuela, abandoning the hesitant tone that has often characterised their public statements about the US president.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Sky News that “Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark are the ones who have the right to decide Greenland’s future, and no one else”. French Foreign Minister Jean Noel Barrot wrote on social media: “Greenland is not to be taken and not for sale”. Danes, meanwhile, are experiencing various forms of shock and grief, according to Rufus Gifford, who served as US ambassador to Denmark during the Obama administration. He told us they are unable to understand Trump’s true intentions.
Gifford believes the most likely scenario is that the president will use US security guarantees to Ukraine as leverage against European countries, including Denmark, to accept Washington’s plans regarding the Arctic island. A former senior US official in Europe told us that one reason NATO leaders hesitated to oppose US territorial ambitions in Greenland earlier and more forcefully was their fear that Trump would respond angrily by reducing US support for Ukraine, and possibly suspending intelligence sharing and arms sales.
The former official added that real concern over US plans began a year earlier, when MAGA supporters, led by Donald Trump Jr, organised a visit to Nuuk, Greenland’s capital. The official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said: “That was the point when things began to escalate from the Danish government’s perspective”. The visit took on a show like atmosphere, as residents gathered to see the delegation arrive aboard the president’s private aircraft, known as Trump Force One.
Danish officials and experts told us that the visit marked the moment Trump lost any hope of winning popular support among Greenlanders. Rumours spread that his son had handed out one hundred dollar bills to homeless island residents, which was not true, but Trump Jr did buy them lunch, according to Boassen, who helped organise the visit. Even so, many Greenlanders saw Trump Jr’s behaviour as embodying a colonial mindset they have long complained about.
Over the following months, some held onto hope that Trump had abandoned his dream of annexing Greenland. However, a series of recent steps revived a sense of danger in Denmark.
Last December, Trump appointed Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as special envoy to Greenland. In the same month, he appointed Tom Dans, an ally, businessman, and investor who helped organise US trips to the island, as head of an Arctic research committee. US Ambassador to Denmark Ken Howery said in a statement to us that embassy staff had been in contact with Dans and that he expects to meet him in his new role. Dans later wrote on social media that he would “Make the Arctic great again!”, but declined to speak with us.
Trump and His Admiration for Military Leverage
The operation in Venezuela appears to confirm that the president is willing to use military force to extract demands from other countries, a modern version of gunboat diplomacy. People close to the president told us he is impressed by what he sees as the success of military interventions he ordered in Iran and Nigeria, and now Venezuela. They said he would not hesitate to use force again and is comfortable using the threat of force as leverage as he turns his attention toward Greenland.
Some of Trump’s associates have taken pleasure in the angry European reactions to his latest expressions of desire to acquire the mineral rich island. One close ally outside the United States said: “Let them toss and turn in their beds. Maybe we take it, maybe we do not. But after what we saw in Caracas, do you really want to test whether Trump is just a man of grand speeches?”
Trump later said Greenland is not yet at the top of his priorities, but he floated multiple timelines, from twenty days to two months, for when he might fully engage with the issue.
Western diplomats and security officials we spoke to expressed shock and anger. One said Denmark and its Nordic neighbours have taken Trump’s statements seriously for a year, but remained uncertain about how to interpret them, and more importantly how to respond.
The editor in chief of the Copenhagen based newspaper Berlingske wrote in a column that Denmark and its allies should seek to raise the cost of any potential US military aggression, including by deploying more military assets to the island: “It will not stop the United States, but it would be a symbolic step”.
A Danish MP, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters frankly, said the very idea of a US invasion of Greenland, or defending against it, is absurd. The island’s area is roughly four times the size of France, and most of it is covered in ice.
The MP added that Danes are puzzled by Trump’s ambitions toward Greenland, because he could achieve all his security objectives through cooperation with Denmark, a reliable US ally. A US nuclear powered base was built beneath Greenland’s ice during the Cold War. He added: “If the Americans want another military base, they should simply say where they want it. If they want to install a radar, they can do that too”.
Carsten Sondergaard, a veteran Danish diplomat who served as ambassador to Russia and permanent representative to NATO, said increasing the number of US troops in Greenland and granting Washington mining rights could be negotiated in ways that serve all parties. He warned that “forcibly seizing an ally’s territory would have disastrous consequences for transatlantic relations and the West. Everything would be at stake”.
A sarcastic remark by Trump directed at Denmark from aboard Air Force One prompted a response from the Danish MP. Trump joked to reporters: “Do you know what Denmark has done recently to strengthen security in Greenland? They increased the number of dog sleds”. In reality, a Danish naval unit known as the Sirius Patrol does conduct reconnaissance missions using dog sleds in the island’s harsh north eastern region.
Ironically, the US Department of Defence itself highlights the history of this unit on its website, noting that Danish, Norwegian, and Greenlandic hunters patrolled Greenland’s coasts by dog sled to repel German infiltrators during the Second World War. Drawing on this legacy, the unit continues to conduct long range missions and enforce Danish sovereignty across the Arctic wilderness of northern and eastern Greenland.
These patrols are often carried out in pairs and sometimes last for months without any human contact. The Danish MP said they are among the most demanding missions in one of the harshest environments on earth, adding that “very few US soldiers could endure a single week there”.
