Name: Is Trump putting Greenlanders off? | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-01-15T17:02:34.000Z
Duration: 7 min 35 s
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Denmark is increasing its military presence in and around Greenland with troops from Germany and other European nations.

A Danish troop transport plane landed at Greenland's capital, Nook, overnight.

Basic passive voice

The arrival of troops is said to be in support of military exercises.

But it comes as Donald Trump justifies calls for a U.S. takeover of the territory.

He says Greenland can't defend itself against Russia's or China's Arctic ambitions.

The announcement came after Denmark's and Greenland's foreign ministers held inconclusive talks in Washington with U.S.

vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a failed attempt to turn down the temperature in Washington.

The foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark were unable to convince US Officials to back down on their plans for Greenland.

We had what I will describe as a frank but also constructive discussion.

The discussions focused on how to ensure the long term security in Greenland.

And here our perspectives continue to differ.

I must say the President has made his view clear and we have a different position and we therefore still have a fundamental disagreement.

But we also agree to disagree, and therefore we will, however, continue to talk.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump remains undeterred from his goals to annex the territory.

Greenland is very important for the 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

You found that out last week with Venezuela.

Trump's concerns about Greenland's vulnerability has caused Denmark to boost the number of its troops in and around the Arctic territory.

This means that from today and for the near future, there will be an increased military presence in and around Greenland involving aircraft, ships and soldiers, including those from other NATO allies.

Germany, France, Norway and Sweden say that they will also be sending troops to Greenland to beef up security.

For more on the European response to President Trump's ambitions for Greenland, we can cross straight to Brussels and speak to our correspondent there, Jack Parrot.

It's pretty clear there that the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers did not manage to persuade the Trump administration to change their minds.

So how worried is the EU now about what is likely to happen next?

Yeah, there's a multitude of worries in Europe about what this means for the European Union, also what it means for the NATO military alliance.

If the United States were to annex one of its allies territories, it would be very, very complicated.

Now, we heard from the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen.

She said that Europe should make itself a military powerhouse and that that would be part of securing the defense structures that Europe needs in order to prevent this kind of situation with Donald Trump.

Now, this is really, really complicated for the eu and at the moment, it remains this issue between Denmark and the United States.

And that's why we saw the Danish Foreign Minister, Lasloch Rasmussen, going there to the United States to try and have these negotiations to try and dissuade the United States from trying to take over Greenland.

But there's a number of different things that have happened over the last few days.

The Greenlandic prime minister, Jens Friedrich Nielsen, he said that in a real shift in Greenlandic sort of policy, that Greenland would rather be with Denmark than with the United States.

I spent a couple of weeks in Greenland throughout 2025, and

the overarching political discourse in that country is that the Greenlanders want their independence from Denmark.

This pressure from the United States has shifted that to the point that the Greenlandic prime minister now says they'd rather stay with, with Denmark.

Now, Donald Trump, he responded to that, saying, who is he?

He didn't even know who the Greenlandic prime minister was and said, that's going to be a real problem for him.

I've spoken to a lot of the people that I met when I was in Greenland over the course of the last year, and

many of them have said that this is absolutely astonishing, astonishing to them that the United States president, who's trying and threatening to conquer their country, wouldn't even know who their prime minister is.

And Trump regularly says, listen, the Danes have been horrible to the Greenlanders.

Many of the Greenlanders would agree colonial crimes were perpetrated over the last half a century plus, and

that, you know, that's often the reason that they want independence.

But there's a big, big shift now in discourse in Greenland, and

that is now also flexing across the rest of Europe, who's really concerned about what this would mean.

Like I said, the potential breakdown of NATO's if the US were to annex Greenland from Denmark.

I mean, you were talking about Europe's military earlier.

I mean, Europe appears to be rallying now in support of Denmark, France, Germany and Norway, reacting quickly, promising to send troops.

So tell us how significant a multinational force like this is.

You know, what would it actually look like?

Well, it looks like, like we saw, there's going to be some military installations, some additional ships, some.

Some additional naval installations around Greenland.

There is, though, Anya, a fundamental disagreement between the Europeans and the Americans on how many Russian and Chinese ships are actually in the waters heading up to the Arctic around Greenland.

The Europeans just don't believe there are as many as Donald Trump says there are and that they sort of behind closed doors, believe that this is the pretext that Donald Trump wants to use to try and, and, and

Now, it's important to say there is huge Russian, Chinese, American and European interest in what is happening in the high north and the Arctic.

The shipping lanes, the minerals that are potentially there are of interest to all of the major global players.

Now, on top of that collective mission that the Danes, the Norwegians, the Swedes, the French and the Germans are believed to be involved in as well, we've also heard from a European perspective, the EU defense commissioner, Andreas Kabilius, suggested some sort of hundred, 100,000 troop force that the European Union could try and muster in some way.

How possible, how credible that is, we don't really know.

But the, what we're seeing with this is a real shift on top of the Russia's invasion of Ukraine that is sort of really hypercharged.

This, we're now seeing this situation create a new context where Europe is starting to say, right, we need to seriously remilitarize now and even do it within, within an EU context.