Greenland says red lines must be respected as Trump says US will have ‘total’ access to island
Aviaq Brandt protests against Trump's policy towards Greenland in front of the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Greenland has demanded its red lines on sovereignty be respected after Donald Trump claimed an agreement with Nato would give the US full and permanent access to the Arctic island, the object of an increasingly bitter months-long dispute.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s prime minister, said on Thursday he did not know what was in the deal but the largely self-governing territory wanted a “peaceful dialogue” with the US, and its sovereignty was non-negotiable.
“We have some red lines ... We have to respect our territorial integrity. We have to respect international law, sovereignty,” Nielsen said, adding that if Greenlanders had to choose, “We choose the Kingdom of Denmark, we choose the EU, we choose Nato.”
Nielsen told a press conference in the Greenlandic capital, Nuuk: “Nobody other than Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark have the mandate to make deals or agreements about Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark without us.”
A day after backing away from his threat to use tariffs as leverage to seize Greenland, and ruling out the use of force, Trump said on Thursday that the “framework of a future deal” gave the US “total access” with “no end, no time limit”.
The US president had on Wednesday hailed an “ultimate long-term deal” with Nato that he said would settle the transatlantic dispute over Greenland after weeks of rising tensions that risked the biggest breakdown in transatlantic relations in decades.
But the precise terms of the agreement apparently struck between Trump and Mark Rutte, the alliance’s secretary general, remained unclear and the Danish government also insisted there was no question of it compromising territorial integrity.
The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said Nato states backed having a “permanent presence” in the Arctic, including around Greenland.
“Everybody in Nato agrees about that – the Arctic states, but also other member states – that we need a permanent presence from Nato in the Arctic region, including around Greenland,” she said, arriving at an EU summit in Brussels which was hastily convened earlier this week in response to Trump’s threats.
Denmark’s status as a sovereign state, she stressed repeatedly, was not up for negotiation and “it cannot be discussed, it cannot be changed”. Asked whether she trusted the US administration, she replied: “We have been working very closely with the US for many years, but we have to work together respectfully without threatening each other.”
Speaking at a campaign-style rally in Ohio on Thursday, the US vice-president, JD Vance, said negotiations with Nato were “going fine”. Vance said Greenland mattered to US national security because “our entire missile defence relies on security in the Arctic”.
Trump’s repeated and aggressive assertions that the US needed “complete control” of Greenland have threatened to reignite a trade war with Europe and also risked unravelling the Nato alliance that has guaranteed western security for decades.
At the weekend, he threatened to impose a 10% tariff on imports from Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland unless they dropped their objections to his plans, prompting EU leaders to consider retaliation.
After meeting with Trump in Davos, Rutte told Reuters on Thursday that Nato senior commanders would “work out what is necessary”, adding: “I have no doubt we can do this quite fast. Certainly I would hope for 2026, I hope even early in 2026.”
The Nato secretary general earlier told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he had had a “very good discussion” with Trump on how the transatlantic defence alliance’s members could bolster Arctic security.
“One workstream coming out of yesterday … is to make sure when it comes to Greenland, particularly, that we ensure that the Chinese and the Russians will not gain access to the Greenland economy [or] militarily to Greenland,” he said.
EU leaders met in Brussels to discuss how to handle the unpredictable US president amid a sense that transatlantic ties have been badly damaged by his Greenland grab.
Transatlantic relations “have definitely taken a big blow over the last week” but Europeans were “not willing to junk 80 years of good relations” with the US, said the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas.
Other EU leaders also showed determination to maintain the US as an ally. “I still treat the United States as our closest friend,” the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, said, referencing the two US battalions deployed in his country.
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, another staunch transatlanticist, said: “Europe should be here absolutely united to protect our relations with our partners on the other side of the Atlantic even if it is much more difficult than ever before.”
But he added that politics needed “trust and respect ... not domination and for sure not coercion”.
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, welcomed Trump’s change of heart. “I am very grateful that President Trump has distanced himself from his original plans to take over Greenland, and I am also grateful that he has refrained from imposing additional tariffs on 1 February,” he said.
Emmanuel Macron of France, still wearing aviator shades to cover an eye infection, said Europe needed to “remain extremely vigilant and ready to use the instruments at our disposal should we find ourselves the target of threats again.”
Nato’s top military commander in Europe, Gen Alexus Grynkewich of the US, said the alliance had not yet received political guidance but was “doing some thinking about how we would organise for it. No planning has started, but we’re ready.”
Shaken EU governments remain wary of another abrupt change of mind from Trump, considered by many in national capitals and Brussels to be a power-monger to whom the bloc will sooner or later have to stand up.
Trump has repeatedly said the US needs to take control of Greenland for “national security”, despite the US already having a military base on the island and a bilateral agreement with Denmark allowing it to significantly expand its presence there.
Media reports suggested Wednesday’s putative deal could revolve around a renegotiation of that 1951 defence pact, which was updated in 2004 to take account of Greenlandic home rule. The US has one base on Greenland, the Pituffik space base.
Frederiksen said Denmark wished to “continue a constructive dialogue with its allies on ways to strengthen security in the Arctic, including the US Golden Dome [missile-defence system], provided this is done with respect for our territorial integrity”.
European leaders had lined up to criticise what the French president, Emmanuel Macron, called Trump’s “new colonialism”.
The bloc also floated retaliatory economic action, including tariffs on €93bn (£80bn) of US imports and the bloc’s “big bazooka” – its “anti-coercion instrument” – which would limit US access to European markets including investment and digital services.
Teresa Ribera, a European Commission executive vice-president, said the EU needed to speak up against Trump. “Silence is too ambiguous, too dangerous,” she said in an interview with La Vanguardia. “If Europe remains silent in the face of Trump, it fuels fear.”
A European diplomat agreed that a strong EU reaction had influenced Trump. “EU firmness and unity have contributed to get him to change his position,” they said. “Obviously also internal political pressure in the US, and market reaction.”
However, Germany’s vice-chancellor, Lars Klingbeil, said Europe “should wait and see what substantive agreements are reached. No matter what solution is now found, everyone must understand that we cannot sit back, relax and be satisfied.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
