Plenty of people have said that Donald Trump may not be serious about the U.S. buying Greenland. The calculus behind that assertion is that it’s a negotiating tactic to allow the U.S. to maintain a greater presence in the Arctic. We could be closer to that objective than ever before.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that she’s open to allowing the U.S. to increase its military presence in Greenland. At the same time, she repeated the oft-parroted claim that Greenland is not for sale.
“Denmark hopes to defuse an escalating crisis triggered by Donald Trump’s desire to buy the Danish-governed landmass on national security grounds,” reports The Telegraph. “The U.S. president has refused to rule out military or economic coercion to seize control of the island.”
“I totally agree with the Americans that the High North, the Arctic region, is becoming more and more important when we are talking about defense and security and deterrence,” Frederiksen said at an EU meeting in Brussels. “And it is possible to find a way to ensure stronger footprints in Greenland.”
There’s already an American base in Greenland that keeps an eye on missile threats and space issues. Frederiksen said that the U.S. “can have more possibilities.”
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This statement came after NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte reportedly said that he believes Trump and Frederiksen should work together on Arctic defense.
"When it comes to defense in the Arctic, Trump is right,” Rutte reportedly said. “What I think is very good is that the Prime Minister of Denmark immediately began negotiations with President Trump. Essentially, it was about the high relevance of defense in the far north."
Frederiksen is well aware of the threats that Russia and China pose to Arctic security. As a result of these threats, she said that Denmark and NATO are willing to do their part to help.
“So if this is about securing our part of the world, we can find a way forward,” she told reporters.
JD Vance told Fox News that Greenland is key to national security:
It’s really important to our national security. There are sea lanes there that the Chinese use, that the Russians use, that frankly, Denmark, which controls Greenland, it’s not doing its job and it’s not being a good ally.
So you have to ask yourself, how are we going to solve that problem, solve our own national security? If that means that we need to take more territorial interest in Greenland, that is what President Trump is going to do, because he doesn’t care what the Europeans scream at us.
He cares about putting the interests of America’s citizens first.
“We have fought side by side with the Americans for many, many decades,” Frederiksen said in response to Vance’s comments. “I will not accept the notion that Denmark is a bad ally. We are not, we have not been, and we will not be in the future.”
At this point, it sounds like the Greenland issue is ongoing, depending on whom you talk to about it. But Denmark’s potential willingness to allow the U.S. to step up its military presence in the region is more winning, even if it’s a small win.
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