US Lawmakers Arrive in Denmark Amid Greenland Push

A delegation of U.S. lawmakers met Danish and Greenlandic leaders in Copenhagen on Jan. 16 to affirm support for Denmark as a NATO ally amid President Donald Trump’s push to acquire Greenland.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), alongside Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and other U.S. lawmakers, traveled to Denmark to meet with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and other delegates.

On Jan. 14, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt met with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House to discuss Greenland’s future, a discussion that Rasmussen said was constructive but frank.

“We, the Kingdom of Denmark, continue to believe that also the long term security of Greenland can be ensured inside the current framework, the 1951 agreement on the defense of Greenland, as well as the NATO Treaty,” Rasmussen said at a press conference afterwards.

Greenland is currently an autonomous country under Danish governance and, thereby, is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Trump first promoted the idea of the United States buying Greenland in his first term, and his comments met some pushback at the time.

“The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security. It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Jan. 14, ahead of the meeting.

The Golden Dome is a proposed missile defense system that will detect and destroy any incoming ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles.

Trump said, with the threat of Russia and China in the Arctic Circle, Denmark wouldn’t be able to provide sufficient defense for the island against those threats, creating a national security threat to the United States.

Denmark has repeatedly said that Greenland is not for sale, and other European countries have opposed Trump’s repeated assertions.

In a retaliatory measure to the White House discussion on Jan. 14, Denmark announced a long-term NATO exercise in Greenland, Operation Arctic Endurance, involving troops from Denmark and other NATO members, France, the UK, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, who were either sending troops or had pledged to do so in the coming days.

Greenland has a population of 57,000 and has been under Danish governance since 1721, as a colony, and became fully part of Denmark in 1953.

The Home Rule Act was introduced in 1979, granting Greenland significant autonomy to govern its own affairs, and it was later granted full autonomy in 2009 following the passage of the Self-Government Act.

Greenland remains independent, except for its foreign policy, security, and defense, which are handled by Denmark.

Guy Birchall, Emel Akan, and Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.