Donald Trump seizing Greenland would end Nato, warns Denmark

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world

A US attack to seize Greenland from Denmark would lead to the end of Nato, the Danish premier Mette Frederiksen has said in her strongest intervention against Donald Trump.

Frederiksen told Danish broadcasters on Monday that the US president was “serious” about taking control of the vast Arctic island from Copenhagen.

“If the US chooses to attack another Nato country militarily, everything stops. Including our Nato, and the security that has been provided since the end of the second world war,” she told TV2.

She received support from Norway’s foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, who told local newspaper Aftenposten that a US attack on Greenland would mean “the idea of Nato would be broken” and it would be hard to imagine the alliance surviving it.

Their dramatic warnings came after Trump ignored her earlier pleas to stop threatening Denmark and Greenland, and repeated that the US needed the Arctic island for its “security”.

Speculation about where the US could next turn its attention has reached fever pitch after Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela, which led the wife of one of the president’s closest advisers to post a map of Greenland on X with the US flag imposed on it, accompanied by the sole word “soon”.

European leaders including UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and those from the Nordic and Baltic countries rushed to defend Denmark and its sovereignty over Greenland.

Their support came after Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen described the map of the Danish territory posted by Katie Miller — wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff and influential adviser Stephen Miller — as “disrespectful”.

Nielsen said the US rhetoric was “entirely unacceptable” and added: “Enough is enough. No more pressure. No more insinuations. No more fantasies of annexation.”

Speaking on Air Force One later on Sunday night as he flew back to Washington from Florida, Trump repeated that the US needed control of Greenland.

“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said. “I can tell you to boost up security in Greenland, they added one more dog sled.”

Trump added “the European Union needs us to have it”.

Trump and senior US officials have portrayed their military intervention in Venezuela as part of a concept of “hemispheric defence” in which America calls the shots throughout the Americas.

US officials have also included Greenland — geographically part of North America but territorially part of Denmark and Nato — in that concept.

Trump has insisted for the past year that the US would take control of Greenland and has accused Denmark of neglecting its territory and Arctic security.

But Frederiksen on Sunday evening said the US had “no right to annex one of the three countries” in the kingdom of Denmark, which also includes the Faroe Islands.

She added the kingdom “and thus Greenland is part of Nato and is therefore covered by the alliance’s security guarantee”.

The prime minister also noted the US has a defence agreement with Copenhagen that gives it the right to have a military base on Greenland.

The US has in recent decades significantly scaled back its presence on Greenland, from more than 10,000 soldiers to fewer than 200 now.

But Trump and his vice-president JD Vance have claimed Denmark has failed to look after the island’s security even as Copenhagen has in recent months pledged to spend more than $4bn on boosting it including with ships, aircraft, drones, surveillance systems and dog sleds necessary for the remotest parts of the vast island.

Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark’s ambassador to the US, responded to Miller’s social media post by saying: “We expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the kingdom of Denmark.”

Additional reporting by James Politi in Washington