Greenland Premier Jens-Frederik Nielsen says Washington’s objective is still unchanged, raising stakes for Arctic sovereignty even as U.S.-Denmark-Greenland relations soften amid trilateral talks opened after Davos.
Premier Jens-Frederik Nielsen told parliament in Nuuk on Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s position on the Arctic territory and its population has not shifted, even after the U.S. president stepped back from explicit coercive language.
Nielsen’s assessment crystallizes the dispute as a sovereignty test inside a tightening great-power competition across the Arctic, where security, minerals, and sea routes increasingly intersect.
In his address, Nielsen framed the U.S. stance as unambiguous: “Greenland must be taken over and governed by the US.” He added, “Unfortunately, this remains valid and unchanged.”
Those remarks followed Trump’s earlier calls for U.S. control on national security grounds tied to Russia and China, and a period in which Washington threatened sanctions against European governments that opposed the move.
From Threats to Framework
The immediate temperature dropped after Trump met NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2025. Trump withdrew the sanctions threat and said a framework had been established for talks covering Greenland and the broader Arctic.
Trilateral discussions among the United States, Denmark, and Greenland began last week, marking the first formal channel since Trump’s public escalation.
Yet Greenland’s leadership has paired engagement with firm red lines. On Jan. 13, Nielsen set out Nuuk’s alignment choices in stark terms: “If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU.”
“We Choose Denmark”
Economic cooperation remains on the table, but only under Greenlandic rules. On Jan. 22, Nielsen said resource development must meet local law and culture: “If you want to exploit our resources, you have to respect our legislation and our very high environmental standards, because that is part of who we are and part of our culture.”
He added a conditional openness: “But we are ready to discuss anything on mutual respect.”
Denmark has reinforced that position publicly. On Jan. 1, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described a year of strain from allied pressure, where they had to endure a great deal of threats and condescending rhetoric, even from their “closest allies of a lifetime.”
She also rejected the premise of acquisition in stark terms.
Talk of taking over another country and another people, as if they were something that could be bought and owned. That has no place anywhere.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen
Arctic Leverage, Alliance Limits
Together, the statements map a coordinated front across Nuuk and Copenhagen while keeping channels open in Washington. The dispute now sits inside a three-way diplomatic process, with Greenland asserting autonomy, Denmark anchoring sovereignty, and the United States pressing strategic interests.
For allies following Arctic dynamics – including Türkiye, which tracks NATO cohesion and northern security shifts – the episode illustrates how smaller territories become focal points when climate change and geopolitics converge.
The chronology matters. Trump’s renewed push intensified in 2025, with public threats preceding Davos, a framework announced after that meeting, and formal talks opening last week.
Since the start of the whole Arctic saga, Greenland and Denmark have used successive statements to harden their negotiating posture: alignment with NATO and the EU, conditional openness to investment, and a categorical rejection of ownership logic.
The result is a controlled de-escalation in tone without movement on substance – a reminder that Arctic diplomacy is now inseparable from alliance politics.
