White House floats military option for Greenland, rattling Denmark and NATO

Danish officials are increasingly alarmed that the Trump administration has shifted toward an active effort in recent days to seize Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, as the White House said Tuesday that “utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option” to acquire the Arctic island.

The declaration that President Donald Trump could use force to take Greenland came hours after a sharp warning on Tuesday from European leaders that Washington needed to respect the borders of a longtime ally.

U.S. officials in recent days have presented a U.S. move against Greenland as an increasingly concrete possibility in conversations with European counterparts, said a senior European diplomat, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about sensitive plans. Those conversations have transformed an ongoing — and more conventional — discussion among U.S., Danish and Greenlandic leaders about increased U.S. military and economic investments in the territory into something more fraught, the diplomat said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing late Monday that the escalation in public rhetoric was part of a broader strategy to pressure Denmark into selling Greenland to the United States rather than capture it by military force, one official familiar with the briefing said. But the White House on Tuesday made clear that force was still a possibility.

Danish leaders worry that Trump, fresh off ordering a daring raid that deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, may set his sights northward after saying Sunday that Greenland was a national security “need” for the United States “and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.” Trump has previously expressed his desire to purchase Greenland from Denmark, prompting Danish and Greenlandic leaders to remind him that the island is not for sale.

The sharp rhetoric from the White House spurred Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to warn that any U.S. move on Greenland would threaten the future of the NATO defense alliance. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Britain, along with Frederiksen, declared in a statement Tuesday that “the inviolability of borders” is a universal principle and that “Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

Trump has spoken increasingly bellicosely about the vast Arctic island territory since deposing Maduro. It was coupled with a declaration Monday by Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller that “it has been the formal position of the U.S. government since the beginning of this administration … that Greenland should be part of the United States,” sparking additional anxiety in Copenhagen, the diplomat said.

Trump on Sunday complained that “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.” European officials say that while Russia and China have increased their activity in the Arctic, most of that is elsewhere in the region, and that there is not currently a spike near Greenland. The United States already has a military base on the island.

Greenland has been part of the kingdom of Denmark for more than 300 years. An overwhelming majority of Greenlanders opposed annexation by the United States in an opinion poll conducted by Denmark’s Berlingske newspaper last year, although the same poll found that a smaller majority favored independence from Denmark.

Greenland, which has about 57,000 residents, conducts its own economic and domestic policy, while Denmark is responsible for the territory’s security and foreign policy.

“President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Tuesday. “The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.”

After a flurry of declarations by the president and top aides about his desire to acquire Greenland in the first months of last year, the issue had receded from the headlines. Danish officials felt they had settled into positive working discussions with senior U.S. officials, the senior European diplomat said. Conversations focused on how to bolster the U.S. security presence in Greenland and potentially increase U.S. investments in mining for critical minerals there.

Danish leaders say they increased spending on Arctic security by $13.7 billion in 2025 and committed to further increases in the coming years, investments that they say demonstrate their commitment both to Greenland’s security and their responsiveness to U.S. concerns that they had not focused enough on military issues there in recent years.

Senior U.S. officials visited Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, in early December for a series of meetings with their Danish and Greenlandic counterparts, which they said were productive.

Given the positive working relationship, Danish leaders were taken aback when Trump appointed Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) as the U.S. special envoy to Greenland weeks later, which they viewed as a renewal of White House attempts to split Greenland from Denmark, the diplomat said.

That was compounded this weekend after the Venezuela raid in the early hours of Saturday. That same day, Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, posted on X an image of a map of Greenland with the U.S. flag superimposed on it, along with one word: “SOON.”

The post sparked a new round of questions about Greenland to Trump.

Still, the new rhetoric from Trump has not led to major changes for the U.S. military posture there, one U.S. official familiar with ongoing discussions said.

The comments came as senior Pentagon leaders adjust to an unexpected realignment last year in which the administration placed control of U.S. military operations in Greenland under the control of U.S. Northern Command, rather than U.S. European Command. Trump has said repeatedly that the United States needs to control Greenland for its own security, and the realignment of Greenland under Northern Command was described by Pentagon officials as consistent with the president’s desire to defend the United States and build robust security in the Western Hemisphere.

Gen. Gregory Guillot, the head of U.S. Northern Command, traveled to Greenland shortly after the announcement, visiting Pituffik Space Base in late June and meeting with senior Danish military leaders. The remote base is home to the northernmost deep water port in the world, a 10,000-foot runway and an array of U.S. missile defense technology, U.S. military officials said. It was previously known as Thule Air Force Base and renamed by the Biden administration in 2023 to recognize cultural heritage in Greenland, officials said at the time.

U.S. military officials are preparing with Danish counterparts to hold a portion of an upcoming training exercise, Arctic Edge, in Greenland, the U.S. official said. While most of the exercise takes place in Alaska, a component of Americans from the U.S. Special Operations Mountain Warfare Training Center in Colorado last year trained in March with special operations forces from Norway, Denmark and Britain in Greenland, snowmobiling in mountains near Mestersvig, a Danish military installation along the eastern coast. A similar effort is expected again.

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• John Hudson contributed.