Denmark’s prime minister warned on Monday, January 5th that any U.S. move to take Greenland by force would destroy 80 years of transatlantic security links, after President Donald Trump repeated his desire to annex the mineral-rich Arctic territory.
Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears about Trump’s designs on the autonomous Danish territory, which has untapped rare earth deposits and could be a vital player as polar ice melts, opening up new shipping routes.
On Sunday, the U.S. leader proclaimed:
We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.
In response, Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told Trump to back off, while several European countries and the European Union rushed to back Denmark, which has urged Washington to stop threatening a NATO ally.
In Copenhagen, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the TV2 network:
If the United States decides to militarily attack another NATO country, then everything would stop—that includes NATO and therefore post-World War II security.
Greenland is on the shortest route for missiles between Russia and the United States, and Washington already has a military base there.
With the situation in Venezuela more pressing, “we’ll worry about Greenland in about two months,” Trump quipped on Sunday.
Nielsen told Trump on social media: “That’s enough now. No more pressure. No more insinuations. No more fantasies of annexation.”
“We are open to dialogue,” he said. “But this must happen through the proper channels and with respect for international law.”
On Monday, he called for renewed contact with the U.S. and urged against panic.
“The situation is not such that the United States can conquer Greenland. That is not the case. Therefore, we must not panic. We must restore the good cooperation we once had,” Nielsen said in Nuuk.
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