- - 'Very serious.' Denmark, Greenland fear Trump still wants to take control

Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY February 14, 2026 at 1:48 PM

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MUNICH, Germany − The leaders of Denmark and Greenland do not think the crisis over the Arctic territory has ended and believe President Donald Trump is still "very serious" about acquiring the territory.

Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's prime minister, and her Greenlandic counterpart Jens-Frederik Nielsen, made the comment about the semi-autonomous Danish island while appearing at the Munich Security Conference on Feb 14.

"I think the desire from the U.S. president is exactly the same," said Frederiksen, when asked during a panel how to describe the situation now that formal talks over the issue have begun. "He’s very serious about this," she said.

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Responding to the same question about whether the talks would appease Trump, Nielsen said "we cannot lower our shoulders." He said that Trump's desire to acquire Greenland was "still there."

Their lingering anxiety over Trump's interest in Greenland comes even though both leaders said they held constructive talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the conference. The United States, Denmark and Greenland launched talks in late January to resolve the diplomatic crisis.

But virtually no details about the discussion have been made public beyond a statement from Trump while he was attending the World Economic Forum last month, when he said the "framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland" had been reached.

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That announcement appeared to catch Denmark and Greenland by surprise. And NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte later clarified that he did not discuss Greenland's sovereignty with Trump.

1 / 20Greenlanders march in defiance of Trump’s efforts to claim the islandPeople attend a protest against President Donald Trump's demand that the Arctic island be ceded to the U.S., calling for it to be allowed to determine its own future, in front of the U.S. consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, Jan. 17, 2026.

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"I hope we can find a solution to all this," Denmark's Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters, including USA TODAY, on the sidelines of the conference in Germany's Bavarian capital.

Nielsen said the saga was taking a toll on the Greenlandic people, who have repeatedly expressed in polls that while they want eventually to become independent of Denmark, they have no interest at all in becoming American.

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"If I think about my people, we are so proud. We live in a harsh environment, we are resilient, we live in a land where nobody was able to live for many, many, many years. There’s a reason why we are the ones left," Nielsen joked during a discussion about Arctic security. His statement drew laughter from the audience.

"The paradox," he added, "is that the Greenlandic people have never felt threatened, and now [for] the first time they feel unsafe for real, [it is] with an ally who is talking about acquiring them, buying them and so on. It's outrageous."

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Frederiksen said Denmark is willing to work with the Trump administration to find a solution but "there are of course things you cannot compromise on." She named a state's sovereignty and territorial integrity as two of those things.

A senior Greenlandic official previously told USA TODAY that an idea floated by Trump that the United States could effectively take ownership of American military bases in Greenland also marked a "red line."

Frederiksen said that revising a 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States likely offers a "very easy" way for Washington to "have a stronger footprint in Greenland." Trump has said his desire to acquire Greenland is driven by a combination of national security strategy and access to natural resources.

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NATO said on Feb. 11 that it had launched a mission to strengthen its presence in the Arctic, part of an effort to defuse tensions within the alliance prompted by Trump's push to acquire Greenland from Denmark.

"We don’t think it’s over," said Frederiksen in Munich.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Denmark, Greenland worry Trump still wants to take control

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