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US President Donald Trump’s threat to take over Greenland still hangs over the Arctic island’s residents, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Tuesday.
Earlier this year, Trump sent shockwaves across Europe when he publicly refused to rule out the possibility of using military force or economic coercion to seize the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
While his attention has since turned to other issues ranging from trade tariffs and NATO spending to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Frederiksen said Trump’s takeover threat was still a concern for Denmark and for the some 60,000 inhabitants of Greenland.
“Right now it seems far away,” Frederiksen said at the opening of Denmark’s parliament.
“There is perhaps a feeling that we can breathe a sigh of relief. It is my belief that we cannot.”
She told Danish lawmakers that that residents of Greenland’s small coastal settlements must live with the unsettling idea that the “world’s strongest superpower has spoken of you as something you can buy, as something that you can own”.
“It creates an insecurity that doesn’t just disappear,” Frederiksen said.
Denmark, a NATO ally of the US, has repeatedly said that Greenland is not for sale and has recently increased military activity on and defence investment in the island.
“No matter what happens, we support Greenland in determining their own future,” Frederiksen said in her address to parliament. “And we will not be threatened or intimidated into doing something that is obviously wrong.”
Frederiksen’s remarks echo comments by Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen in an interview with Euronews in July.
Trump’s expansionist threat over Greenland is not “over and done” yet, even if the prospect of a military intervention remains very unlikely, Rasmussen said.
In late August, Rasmussen summoned the US embassy’s top diplomat in Copenhagen for talks after Denmark’s national broadcaster reported that at least three people with connections to Trump had been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland.
Greenland has looked to strengthen its relationship with the European Union and other allies since Trump’s threat.
Last month, the European Commission proposed doubling its financial aid to Greenland as part of the next EU budget. Under the multi-annual financial framework for 2028–2034, the Commission is proposing more than €530 million in funding for Nuuk.