Name: Only Greenland and Denmark should decide its future - UK PM | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-01-05T17:15:19.000Z
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Greenland's prime minister has told Donald Trump to drop his fantasies of annexation after repeated US Threats to take over the autonomous Danish territory.

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Shortly after the US Raid on Venezuela on Saturday, the wife of President Trump's top aide posted this on X, a map of Greenland in the colors of the American flag, with the caption soon.

Katie Miller is the wife of the White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

President Trump reiterating on Air Force One on Sunday that he wanted Greenland for national security reasons.

Well, worry about Greenland in about two months.

We talked so much about energy, by the way, I have to, I will say this about Greenland.

We need Greenland from a national security situation.

Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.

We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.

And Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you.

I think it's a big, you know what Denmark did recently to boost up security in Greenland?

We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and the European Union needs us to have it.

Well, responding in the last couple of hours, the British prime minister has told the BBC only Denmark and Greenland can decide the future of the territory.

Zakir Starmer has been speaking to our political editor Chris Mason.

The Danes are saying very clearly to President Trump, hands off Greenland.

Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark must decide the future of Greenland and only Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark.

And Denmark is a close ally in Europe, is a NATO ally.

And it's very important that the future of Greenland is, as I say, for the Kingdom of Denmark and for Greenland themselves, and

only for Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark.

Rasmuss Sinding Sondergaard is from the Danish Institute for International Studies.

He gave me his view from the ground in Copenhagen.

The response and the reaction in Denmark, and

I also think in Greenland, was exactly as you heard now from the Prime Minister as well, that this is an unacceptable provocation.

That was the message also from the prime Minister in Greenland and also from here in Copenhagen, from the Danish Prime Minister.

This is viewed as inappropriate and there's an attempt to try and push back against some of the claims from Trump here.

What power does Denmark have at the moment?

Well, it's obviously a Highly asymmetrical relationship in terms of any measurement, really, but

So, I mean, it's not like Denmark is able to either change Donald Trump's mind or put up any meaningful resistance in the case of an unlikely, though, but

still unlikely military operation by the United States.

What Denmark is trying to do is to signal very clearly to a broader American audience, not just the president, and

also to an international audience, of course, what is Denmark and Greenland's position here?

And also signal that the Kingdom of Denmark has taken steps to increase security in the Arctic, which has been Donald Trump's primary criticism against Denmark.

Is Denmark also comforted by the fact that it is a NATO member and therefore covered by the security guarantee that, you know, an attack on one and is an attack on all?

I think that that comfort from being an NATO member was stronger back in the days when we had this expectation that another NATO member would not threaten our security.

So, obviously now, with the United States, Donald Trump making his remarks about Greenland and taking control over the island, potentially through military force, that weakens the sort of comfort that one takes in the NATO membership.

However, that being said, it's important to note that being a member of NATO, Greenland through the Kingdom of Denmark, of course, means there's radically different implications for Trump to do some sort of military operation compared to what we saw in Venezuela, where the US Removed an illegitimate and wildly unpopular dictator.

Can you remind us, Rasmus, why President Trump wants Greenland?

Well, the president says it's for national and international security.

And as he remarked again recently here, he is very concerned about the presence of Russia and China in the Arctic region, something that he hasn't really substantiated with a whole lot of documentation.

However, there are also speculation that it might have to do with some of the mineral wealth that is underneath the ground in Greenland, just as with the oil in Venezuela.

But more than anything else, I think we can say that Trump has been highly preoccupied with his notion of making the United States greater, of expanding the territory of the United States, and

that is why he feels that he needs to have control over Greenland and not merely cooperate with Greenland and Denmark under the existing circumstances.