Denmark vows to defend Greenland after Trump revives takeover push

Denmark said it would defend Greenland after Donald Trump again declared that the island should be under U.S. control. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Denmark was “ready to defend every inch of NATO, including our own territory,” turning a summit built around alliance unity and defense spending into another confrontation over an allied territory.

Frederiksen framed the dispute as a defense of the whole Kingdom of Denmark, which includes Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory, but Denmark still handles its foreign affairs and defense under the 2009 Self-Government Act. That law also recognizes Greenlanders’ right to self-determination and says negotiations on independence must begin if Greenland votes for it.

The political rejection from Nuuk has been blunt. Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s prime minister, said on July 3 that Greenland “will never be for sale.” In January, all five parties in Greenland’s parliament issued a rare joint statement saying, “We will not be Americans, we will not be Danes, we are Greenlanders.” Those words underscored that the territory’s leaders see the issue not as a bargaining chip between Washington and Copenhagen, but as a question of Greenlandic identity and self-rule.

Trump first revived the idea of acquiring Greenland in 2019, when Frederiksen’s refusal prompted him to cancel a planned visit to Denmark after she said the island was “not for sale.” He brought the issue back again at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on July 7 and July 8, 2026, arguing that Greenland matters for U.S. national security as China and Russia expand their presence in the Arctic. He also threatened consequences for Europe, including the possibility of pulling U.S. troops from the continent if Denmark refused to hand over the island.

The renewed pressure leaves Denmark balancing its alliance obligations against a public red line over sovereignty. It also puts Greenland at the center of a wider NATO test, where Arctic security, allied cohesion and the rights of a self-governing territory are now colliding in front of the same leaders meant to project unity.