Danish officials arrived at the White House on Wednesday seeking reprieve from President Donald Trump‘s saber-rattling toward their territory of Greenland.
After meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the leaders said they agreed to disagree about the future of the island but expressed a willingness to “continue to talk” about the administration’s security concerns in the Arctic.
“Of course, we share, to some extent, his concerns,” Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Lars Løkke Rasmussen, a former prime minister of Denmark, told reporters from the Danish Embassy following the meeting. “The big difference is whether that must lead to a situation where the U.S. must acquire Greenland, and that is absolutely not necessary.”
The Danish foreign minister acknowledged that in an era of unprecedented Russian aggression and Chinese encroachment into the Arctic sphere, there is “definitely a new security situation in the Arctic and the high north,” and both nations share a “vision of keeping the Arctic as a low-tension region.”
Trump has characterized the acquisition of Greenland as a national security imperative, saying sovereignty over the island would provide the United States with a strategic foothold in the North Atlantic to prevent belligerence or strikes from Russia.
“We’re going to see what happens with Greenland. We need Greenland for national security, so we’re going to see what happens. They’re going to brief me in the meeting right after this conference. We have a very good relationship with Denmark,” Trump said on Wednesday, insisting that “if we don’t go in, Russia is going to go in, and China’s going to go in.”
“Greenland is very important for national security, including of Denmark. And the problem is there’s not a thing that Denmark can do about it if Russia or China wants to occupy Greenland. But there’s everything we can do. You found that out last week with Venezuela. … I can’t rely on Denmark being able to defend themselves,” he added.
Greenland and Denmark have resisted this narrative, pointing to their long-standing pact with the U.S. that provides broad allowances for military presence and the building up of infrastructure.
“We have the longest-lasting diplomatic relation with the U.S. that any U.S. ally has — 225 years in a row. And we have perfect framework which could be used,” Rasmussen said. “Even though [the meeting] wasn’t so successful that we reached a conclusion where our American colleagues said, ‘Sorry, it was a total misunderstanding, we give up on our ambitions’ — it was clearly a disagreement — we agreed that it makes sense to try to sit down at a high level.”
A working group between the relevant parties is being drafted and set to meet in the coming weeks to discuss security in the Arctic region around Greenland.
Rasmussen said conversations will explore opportunities to “accommodate the concerns of the president” while reiterating the diplomatic “red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark.”
Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt lamented the deterioration of relations between her country and the U.S., saying the priority is to return to the “normalized relationship we used to have.”
“We have history together,” Motzfeldt said. “It’s in all our interests to find the right path.”
The Trump administration’s offer to purchase Greenland reportedly carries a price tag equal to half the national defense budget, estimated at approximately $700 billion.
“I’d love to make a deal with them,” Trump said on Sunday. “It’s easier. But one way or the other, we’re going to have Greenland.”
Rasmussen and Motzfeldt did not indicate whether a monetary offer was made in the meeting, but Danish and Greenland officials have reiterated time and time again that there is no price they would accept for the island territory.
“We’ve said all along that that’s the red line that we’re not going to cross,” a Danish official told the Washington Examiner following the White House meeting. “I would say that if they had [made a concrete offer to purchase Greenland] we would have clearly rejected that notion.”
European nations initially responded with intense indignation to the Trump administration’s goal of seizing Greenland, but have taken a more conciliatory tone as the White House has made clear it does not intend to back down.
“It’s very important to say it again — how important it is from our side to strengthen our cooperation with the United States. But that doesn’t mean that we want to be owned by the United States,” Motzfeldt said. “As allies, how we can strengthen our cooperation is in our interest.”
TRUMP POSITS GREENLAND ‘VITAL’ FOR GOLDEN DOME SYSTEM AS RUBIO MEETS WITH DANISH OFFICIALS
Officials in Greenland, Denmark, and other European NATO members have voiced concern that the illicit seizure of the island would be a death knell for the defense alliance.
Naomi Lim contributed to this story.
