Amid growing issues that Greenland, an enormous Arctic territory dominated by Denmark, continues to be being coveted by the Trump administration, the Danish prime minister has delivered a stark warning to the White House.
In nationally televised remarks, Mette Frederiksen reminded Danes that she had already “made it very clear where the Kingdom of Denmark stands, and that Greenland has repeatedly said that it does not want to be part of the United States.”
But she additionally warned of the penalties of US military motion to grab Greenland – one thing US President Donald Trump has pointedly refused to rule out.
“First of all, I think you have to take the US president seriously when he says he wants Greenland,” Frederiksen mentioned, reflecting heightened nervousness about Trump’s intentions in the aftermath of his extraordinary military action in Venezuela.
“But I also want to make it clear that if the US chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, everything stops, including NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of World War II,” she added.
It is a critical and extensively shared concern amongst NATO allies that the Greenland concern has the potential not solely to anger and humiliate a longtime US associate, but in addition to fracture the Western military alliance as strain from Washington escalates.
Trump repeated on Sunday that the US wants Greenland “from the standpoint of national security.”
“We need Greenland … It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place,” Trump instructed reporters aboard Air Force One. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
His remarks got here after Katie Miller, a Trump ally and the spouse of Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of employees for coverage, posted on X yesterday a picture of the map of Greenland overlaid with the American flag, writing, “SOON.”
It’s the newest reminder of a repeatedly said Trump-administration ambition that has set Washington’s conventional European allies – most of all, Denmark – on edge.
NCS visited Greenland in October, as the Danish military staged an unprecedented present of military power formally meant to discourage what are mentioned to be rising Russian and Chinese military threats.
Moscow could also be slowed down preventing in Ukraine at the second, however as soon as that brutal battle is lastly over, Danish military officers inform NCS they absolutely count on Russia to divert sources and use its warfighting expertise to pose a a lot larger menace in the Arctic area.
China, too, has been stepping up its Arctic claims, participating in patrols and workouts with Russian vessels, in addition to funding Arctic infrastructure tasks and creating a “polar silk road” plan for Arctic delivery. It’s even declared itself a “near-Arctic state,” regardless that its most northerly main metropolis, Harbin, is roughly as far north as Venice in Italy.
But in face-to-face conferences, senior Danish military commanders say that neither Russia nor China at the moment current any vital military menace to Greenland.
“I don’t think we have a threat to Greenland right now,” Major General Søren Andersen, the chief of Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command, instructed NCS.
What’s extra, Danish military officers insist the world’s largest island – the measurement of six Germanys or two of the greatest US states, Alaska and California, mixed – is comparatively easy to defend. Harsh climate, mountainous terrain and a scarcity of infrastructure make the complete east coast of the territory “virtually unconquerable,” in keeping with one Danish military official.
Privately, Danish military officers instructed NCS the maneuvers on land, air and sea had been actually designed to point out Trump how significantly it took Greenland’s safety, after his repeated threats to take it over, in the hope of convincing him to alter his thoughts.
But that technique, it appears, doesn’t seem to have labored. And with a Trump administration seemingly emboldened by what it regards as a surprising success in Venezuela, the way forward for Greenland and the cohesion of the Western military alliance are as soon as once more being plunged into uncertainty.