Greenland summit at White House could shape future of the Arctic

It’s time for collapse. US Vice President JD Vance will host the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland, as well as his US counterpart Marco Rubio, at the White House on Wednesday.

The focus of the talks is the future of Greenland, the world’s largest island.

A huge digital news banner stretches over the snow-covered shopping mall in Nuuk, the island’s capital. You don’t need to speak Greenlandic to understand the words “Trump,” “Greenland” and “sovereignty” appearing repeatedly in bold red letters.

Donald Trump says he wants this region and will choose it “the easy way or the hard way.” After his latest controversial military action in Venezuela, people in Greenland are taking him at his word.

The tense countdown to the Washington meeting has been going on for days.

Passersby tell me it feels like years.

“I would like to encourage (Donald Trump) to use both ears wisely, listen more and talk less. We are not for sale. Our country is not for sale,” Amelie Zeeb said as she took off her thick gloves, known here as pualuuk and traditionally made of sealskin, by waving her hands for emphasis.

Inuit writer and musician Sivnîssoq Rask said, “My hope is that our country will be independent, well-governed and not bought.”

“I’m worried about the future of my young family. We don’t want all that attention here!” Maria told me, her seven-week-old baby snuggled up in her winter coat.

But international interest in Greenland is not going away anytime soon.

Much more than just the fate of this island hangs in the balance.

The conflict over Greenland pits NATO countries Denmark and the United States against each other.

Greenland is a semi-autonomous region of Denmark. Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen warned that if the United States took control of the island by force, it would mean the end of the transatlantic defense alliance that Europe has relied on for security for decades.

It would also be another damaging blow to US-European relations, which have already been badly damaged since Donald Trump’s return to the White House. And remember: European leaders are desperate to hold the Trump administration together and support a sustainable peace deal for Ukraine, too.

The potential consequences of negative impacts on Greenland are enormous; But it’s unclear how Washington plans to handle Wednesday’s meeting. Will the spirit be one of reconciliation or confrontation?

President Trump insists he needs Greenland for national security. If the USA does not take Greenland, China or Russia will, he says.

Conscious of this, major European powers that vocally support Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland are also seeking to make military proposals to strengthen NATO’s presence around the island and in the Arctic more broadly.

Britain and Germany are leading the way, I’m told, but France announced Wednesday it will open a consulate in Greenland early next month. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called it a “political signal” of greater presence in Greenland, “this region of the Kingdom of Denmark”.

“We share the concerns of the United States that this part of Denmark needs better protection,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday. he said. “We just want to improve Greenland’s security situation together.”

Patrick Sensburg, president of the German Reservists Association, called for at least one European brigade to be deployed in Greenland as soon as possible. He stressed that Germany would “bear special responsibility in the endeavor”, and pointed out that the German army would gain strategic advantages by training soldiers in the challenging Arctic conditions.

The British government is also in talks with its European allies about the possible deployment of military forces to Greenland, particularly in response to threats from Russia and China.

The talks are at a preliminary stage. Troop numbers have not yet been determined, but the possibility of deploying soldiers, warships, aircraft, submarines and anti-drone capabilities to the region is currently being discussed.

One concrete proposal is to create a naval NATO “Arctic Sentry” to mimic the “Baltic Sentinel” established by the alliance in the Baltic Sea after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The seabed of both the Baltic and the Arctic is busy with underwater infrastructure such as energy pipelines and internet cables that are critical for communications and financial transactions worth billions of dollars daily. All are vulnerable to hybrid attack.

“Much more can be done in the Arctic,” Oana Lungescu told me. He became NATO’s longest-serving NATO spokesperson until 2023. He is now a Distinguished Fellow of the defense and security think tank RUSI.

“I don’t think the UK or Germany will send significant numbers of troops to Greenland, but they could hold more exercises in the region or expand existing ones. The UK and other NATO allies have begun deploying naval assets for a major Norwegian-led biennial exercise in the North called Cold Response. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Arctic became a strategic priority for NATO. But more needs to be done.”

Greenland is located between the USA and Canada on one side and Russia and Europe on the other.

Washington first tasted Greenland’s strategic value during World War II. After occupying Denmark, the United States occupied the island to prevent Nazi Germany from taking over. The United States tried to buy Greenland after the war, but Copenhagen refused. Shortly thereafter, the two countries became founding members of NATO and signed a defense agreement in 1951 that is still valid today. This agreement allowed the United States to keep its military bases in Greenland and send as many troops as it wanted to the island.

Greenland lies on the shortest route between the Americas and Russia, making it key to missile defense. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States greatly reduced its presence there, retaining only one military base (Pituffik Cosmodrome), one of Washington’s most important radar stations.

The coastline here is particularly important. There is a maritime blockage point in the waters between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom, called the GIUK gap, which is seen as crucial for keeping an eye on Russian and Chinese ships, and especially submarines moving between the Arctic and the Atlantic.

The USA had asked Denmark to increase its surveillance capacity. Copenhagen recently pledged $4 billion for Greenland’s security, but the Trump administration shrugged it off.

So will NATO’s proposals for a bigger and better presence in the Arctic be enough for the Trump administration?

Julianne Smith was the US ambassador to NATO until President Trump was re-elected; He is currently president of Clarion Strategies.

“This week’s meeting is absolutely critical,” he told me. “I think this will be a turning point one way or another. Representatives from Denmark and Greenland are coming prepared.

“They are taking this moment very seriously, but the real question is whether any of these proposals will actually satisfy the White House, which seems more determined and interested in expanding U.S. territory than addressing the security of Greenland.”

If all Donald Trump is really worried about is security, the Pacific High North is a much more sensitive region for the United States than Greenland in the Arctic, says Ian Lesser, Distinguished Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

This, he told me, is where the presence and interests of Russia and the United States come into close contact. There are actually two small islands in the middle of the Bering Strait where you can walk from the United States to Russia in the middle of winter. Large Diomede is in Russia and Lesser Diomede is in the US state of Alaska.

But since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, tensions have increased there. The waters of the Bering Strait are key to Russia for the passage of strategic nuclear assets, and American and Canadian warplanes have repeatedly had to struggle to intercept Russian military aircraft off the Arctic coast.

Ian Lesser believes that Donald Trump’s focus on Greenland rather than Alaska indicates a greater interest in economic security rather than security in the traditional sense.

But he says both could be handled without touching Danish or Greenlandic sovereignty: NATO could help boost security and defense, and the United States could negotiate investment rights in Greenland.

Greenland is rich in natural resources, including rare earths and minerals, which the United States and all other global powers desire because of their importance to high-tech industries, including advanced defense technologies.

Washington is also considering the potential for new, potentially lucrative shipping routes to open up as the Arctic ice caps melt.

But it is difficult to see how Donald Trump’s appetite for regional expansion could create room for negotiation on Wednesday. His words at the beginning of the week were:

“We’re talking about buying, not renting… We have bases in Greenland. I can station lots of troops if I want, but you need more than that. You need ownership. You really need the title.”

Greenland is a territory of Denmark and therefore politically European, but geographically part of North America. The island is closer to Washington than Copenhagen, and Donald Trump seems interested in making America greater in size and dominance.

Most Greenlanders say they want independence from Denmark, but even more (85% in polls) reject the idea of ​​becoming Americans.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting in Washington, Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said his country was facing a geopolitical crisis and that “if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we will choose Denmark.”

But regardless of how Wednesday’s meeting with the US vice president and secretary of state plays out, Donald Trump is the Joker in the deck of cards, says Sara Olvig of the Greenland Center for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

“What happens will be up to the president’s discretion,” he told me. “And it’s very unpredictable what will happen. But if the United States takes Greenland by force, the United States will no longer be the land of the free… It will be the end of NATO and the end of the democratic world as we know it.”

Russia and China will likely watch the outcome of Wednesday’s meeting as closely as the Greenlanders. There’s a lot at stake here.

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