Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen visited three European capitals on Tuesday, days after US President Donald Trump reiterated his interest in acquiring Greenland.
Over the space of a day, Frederiksen met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris and Nato leader Mark Rutte in Brussels.
Although the leaders were said to have discussed issues including Ukraine and hybrid Russian attacks in the Baltic Sea, the Danish PM’s whirlwind trip betrayed the nervousness felt in Denmark over Trump’s repeated comments.
The Arctic island of Greenland is an autonomous Danish dependent territory.
However, Trump has repeatedly signalled that he wants the US to acquire it for national security reasons – and refused to rule out using military or economic force to do so. “I think we’re going to have it,” he said on Saturday.
Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede – who has pushed for independence from Denmark – insisted last week that Greenlanders “don’t want to be American”.
At a news conference held by Frederiksen and Scholz after their meeting on Tuesday morning, neither leader directly mentioned Greenland or Trump.
But when discussing the need to respect borders and not violate them by force, as Russia did in Ukraine, Scholz emphasised that the concept applied to “everyone” and added, in English: “To whom it may concern.”
In Paris, Frederiksen told reporters she had received “a great deal of support” from her European allies and that there was a “very, very clear message… that of course there must be respect for territory and the sovereignty of states.”
And during her final stop in Brussels, Frederiksen said that she had “no reason to believe that there is any military threat to Greenland or Denmark”.
She reiterated that she still sees the US as Denmark’s closest ally, but when asked about the relationship between Europe and Trump, she replied: “I think everyone in Europe can see that it will be a different collaboration now.”
Frederiksen and Rutte agreed that allies needed to focus on strengthening defences in the Arctic, Reuters reported quoting a source.
While Frederiksen avoided mentioning the Greenland issue directly, her foreign minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, told reporters that Trump would “not have Greenland”.
“The Greenlandic people are a people, also in the sense of international law,” Lokke said.
When asked whether Trump would need to “invade” Greenland to get it, Lokke said that he would not give instructions for how Trump should “get something that he should not have”, Danish media reported.
In a press release issued earlier this week, the foreign ministry said Lokke had spoken to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the two had decided to discuss Arctic security between the US, Denmark and Greenland at a later date.
Danish opposition MP Rasmus Jarlov told the BBC’s Newsnight that he thought “all Americans have heard Denmark say no. But apparently a lot of people in the US think that the Greenlanders want to be Americans – or that they can be bought to agree to it.”
He added: “Many Greenlanders dream of independence from Denmark. But if that happens, it is not with an intention of becoming Americans after independence… It will never be American.”
On Monday, Denmark said it would spend 14.6bn kroner (£1.6bn; $2.05bn) to boost security in the Arctic region, in partnership with Greenland and the Faroe Islands, its other autonomous territory.
