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A meeting between the foreign ministers of Denmark and his Greenland counterpart with Trump officials produced no resolution to escalating tensions around the ownership of the territory, which Washington says must control for national security.
The talks failed to persuade the Trump administration to back down from its bellicose rhetoric around the Danish oversees territory, which the White House argues must be placed under US control “one way or another” including militarily means.
The meeting was attended by Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Greenlandic foreign minister Vivian Motzfeldt and US officials including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rasmussen said the tone was frank and constructive but acknowledged a “fundamental disagreement” between the two.
“We didn’t manage to change the American position,” he told reporters in Washington. “It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.”
Rasmussen rejected Trump’s claims that the semi-autonomous island of Greenland will have “Chinese destroyers and submarines all over the place” if the US doesn’t control the territory and suggested the face-to-face talks had taken down the temperature, while dispelling what he described as a narrative around Denmark’s security commitments.
“We had the opportunity to challenge the narrative of the president,” he said, adding the “narrative that we have Chinese war ships all around the place” is not true. “There hasn’t been one (Chinese ship) for a decade or so,” he said citing Danish intelligence.
However, in what is being portrayed by Danish officials as the most positive result of the meeting, the governments of Greenland, Denmark and the US agreed to set up high-level working group to find a “common way forward” following the talks.
The two will “explore whether there is a possibility to accommodate the concerns of the President, while respecting the redlines of the Kingdom of Denmark,” he said. Danish authorities have repeatedly said Greenland is not for sale. Polls also show the vast majority of the population in Greenland does not want to join the US.
Rasmussen said it was not clear that a compromise could be found.
The meeting then lasted more than two hours.
Agreeing with her counterpart, Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt said the US and Greenland must return to a framework that can lead to a “normalized relationship”.
Meanwhile, Denmark and Sweden announced on Wednesday the deployment of soldiers and military exercises to Greenland amid growing instability. Paris and Berlin are set to participate in the joint troop mission also in an effort to ensure the security of the Arctic.
“The Danish Defense Forces, together with several Arctic and European allies, will explore in the coming weeks how an increased presence and exercise activity in the Arctic can be implemented,” said Danish Foreign Minister Troels Lund Poulsen.
To justify its claim to own Greenland, the Trump administration has repeatedly told the Europeans, and in particular Denmark, cannot guarantee the security of the territory nor the Arctic against malign actors from Russia and China, suggesting only the US can.
The White House insists “one way or another” it will gain control of the island.