Leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement on Tuesday, January 6, 2026, with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen rejecting U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed push for American control of Greenland and stressing that the island’s future is for Greenlanders and Denmark to decide, not Washington.
European leaders moved quickly on Tuesday, January 6, 2026, to push back against U.S. President Donald Trump after he again raised the idea that the United States should take control of Greenland, a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark.
In a joint statement, leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom joined Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in reaffirming Greenland’s right to self-determination. “Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland,” the statement said.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney also expressed support for Denmark and announced that Canada’s Governor General Mary Simon and Foreign Minister Anita Anand would visit Greenland early next month, according to an Associated Press report carried by several public media outlets.
The reaction came after Trump repeated claims that Greenland is strategically vital and argued that Denmark cannot adequately secure it. In comments reported by the AP, Trump said Greenland was “so strategic” and asserted that the island was surrounded by Russian and Chinese vessels, while also mocking Denmark’s security efforts.
Frederiksen, speaking Monday to Denmark’s TV2 broadcaster, warned that any U.S. military action against Greenland would be incompatible with NATO. “If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” she said, adding that such a move would also end the collective security framework that has existed since the end of World War II.
Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, told reporters on Monday that his government wanted constructive cooperation with the United States and did not believe an overnight takeover was imminent, while insisting that Washington could not simply seize Greenland.
Tensions were further inflamed after a social media post by Katie Miller, described in the AP report as a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, that depicted Greenland in U.S. flag imagery with the caption “SOON.” Denmark’s chief envoy to Washington, Ambassador Jesper Møller Sørensen, publicly responded by calling for full respect for Denmark’s territorial integrity.
The AP report also noted that the U.S. Department of Defense operates Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland under a 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States—an arrangement that already gives Washington an established military foothold on the island.
Analysts cited in the same reporting disputed the idea that Greenland faces the immediate, large-scale foreign military threat portrayed in some of Trump’s comments. Ulrik Pram Gad of the Danish Institute for International Studies wrote that while Russian and Chinese ships do operate in Arctic waters, they are not positioned in the way suggested by the president’s rhetoric.
