Denmark, Greenland foreign ministers set to meet Vance

The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland will meet with US Vice President JD Vance at the White House after President Donald Trump reiterated that the US should take control of Greenland, Denmark’s autonomous region.

Trump said that the strategically located and mineral-rich island is vital to the security of the United States and that the United States must own the island to prevent Russia or China from invading it.

He says all options are on the table to ensure the security of the region.

Referring to the proposed missile defense system in a social media post a few hours before the meeting started, he said, “It is vital for the Golden Dome we are building.”

Greenland and Denmark say the island is not for sale, threats of force are reckless and security concerns among the allies must be resolved.

The leading countries of the European Union supported Denmark.

Trump also said that if Greenland was in US hands, the NATO military alliance would become much stronger and more effective.

“Anything less than this is unacceptable,” he wrote.

When Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt meet with Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday, their goal will be to find a diplomatic way to ease the crisis and meet U.S. demands for greater control, analysts said.

“The ultimate goal is to find some kind of accommodation or a deal that will meet that need, or at least calm Donald Trump’s rhetoric sufficiently,” Andreas Osthagen, director of research on Arctic and ocean policies at the Oslo-based Fridtjof Nansen Institute, told Reuters. he said.

Noa Redington, an analyst and former political adviser to previous Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, said concerns are high in Denmark and Greenland that Motzfeldt and Rasmussen could be treated in the same way as Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian leader who was publicly humiliated during a meeting with Trump and Vance at the White House in February 2025.

“This is the most important meeting in the modern history of Greenland,” he told Reuters.

Denmark and Greenland had initially considered a meeting with Rubio, hoping for a discussion between top diplomats on resolving the crisis between the two NATO allies.

But Denmark’s Rasmussen said Vance, who visited a U.S. base in Greenland in March, also wanted to attend and that the vice president would personally host the meeting at the White House.

Greenlandic leaders appear to have changed their approach to dealing with the diplomatic crisis.

Until recently, they emphasized Greenland’s path to independence.

However, their public statements now place more emphasis on Greenland’s union with Denmark.

“This is not the time to gamble with our right to self-determination when another country is talking about taking over us,” Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told Greenlandic newspaper ‍Sermitsiaq in an interview published on Wednesday.

“This does not mean that we do not want something in the future. But here and now we are part of the kingdom and we stand with the kingdom. This is very important in this serious situation,” he said.

Motzfeldt had a similar message.

“We choose Greenland as we know it today as part of the Kingdom of Denmark,” he said in a statement released late Tuesday by the Danish ambassador to the United States.