Denmark’s top diplomat urged calm Wednesday following United States President-elect Donald Trump’s refusal to rule out using military force to acquire Greenland.
“I do not get any impression that we are in any foreign policy crisis,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told Danish media. “I do get the impression that the president on his way into the White House has a heightened focus on the Arctic.
“I think we can all do ourselves a favor and turn down the pulse a little bit,” he added. “I have my own experiences with Donald Trump, and also know that it is not everything you think that you should say aloud.”
Trump declared Tuesday he would not exclude using economic or military coercion to gain control of Greenland, a self-ruling Danish territory, and the Panama Canal. “I’m not gonna commit to that. No. It might be that you’ll have to do something,” he said.
“We need Greenland for national security purposes,” he added. “People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do they should give it up because we need it for national security.”
Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., landed in Greenland on Tuesday on what he called a private visit. His entourage included the elder Trump’s personnel director, Sergio Gor, and bombastic conservative activist Charlie Kirk; the U.S. president-elect described the group as his “reps.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who rebuffed Trump’s first proposal to purchase Greenland in 2019, calling it “absurd,” had already reiterated Tuesday — before Trump’s refusal to rule out acquiring Greenland by force — that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.”
“There is a lot of support among the people of Greenland that Greenland is not for sale and will not be in the future either,” she added.
Rasmussen defended Frederiksen’s remarks, which some in Denmark criticized as weak, insisting she was not “wavering” in her support for Greenland.
He added that “geopolitics is playing a bigger role” and leading to an increased focus on Greenland from the U.S., Russia and China.
Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg backed Denmark’s prime minister as well: “I agree with Prime Minister Frederiksen, who said she cannot imagine the situation coming to that,” he said, referring to a hypothetical U.S. invasion of Greenland.
As global powers seek to expand their reach and footprint in the Arctic, the mineral-rich island — which hosts a U.S. military base — is coveted for its strategic security and trade value.
“Combined with the melting in the Arctic and new shipping routes opening up, we unfortunately also see increasing great power rivalries,” Rasmussen said, calling American interest in the Danish territory in that global context “legitimate,” and that Denmark is open to dialogue with the U.S.
“We see a Russia that is also rearming itself. We see a China that is also beginning to take an interest. It is entirely legitimate that both from the American side and, for that matter, NATO’s side — and thereby also Denmark —there is attention to this,” he added.
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