Trump’s Demands for Greenland Intensify

Greenlanders took to the streets in fierce opposition to President Donald Trump’s demand for the island. Courtesy of Reuters.

On January 4, 2026, United States President Donald Trump renewed his push to annex the island of Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark in the Arctic Circle. Greenland has been an objective of the second Trump administration since before the president took office, but his efforts intensified in early 2026, straining the United States’ relationships with critical European allies.

Nuuk, Greenland’s capital and largest city, was enveloped in anxiety. The Greenlandic government issued a guide to help citizens survive independently for up to five days, as senior politicians described the public mood as “terror.” While the consequences of the crisis over Greenland’s sovereignty are starkly visible for Greenlanders, distant negotiations in Davos and Washington continue, rarely mentioning the perspectives of actual residents.

"We feel like we are not treated as our own people living in our own country. We are treated like an item to buy, and we really want to get away from that," said Mayor of Nuuk Avaaraq Olsen. She reiterated that Greenlanders’ positions had not changed since protests drew hundreds to the streets of Nuuk in the spring of 2025, rejecting any plans for a U.S. takeover.

A poll from spring of 2025 found that 85% of Greenlanders did not want to become a part of the United States, contradicting President Trump’s claim that Greenlanders “want to be with us.” Greenland’s Prime Minister, Jens Frederik Nielsen, has echoed these sentiments, calling the idea of US control a "fantasy."Former Greenlandic MP Tillie Martinussen extended even further, stating that President Trump is treating Greenlandic citizens like "sex workers" or a "common prostitute." "This is outrageous and it's insane and it is scary for some, but I think mostly we just get angry," Martinussen continued.

Regardless of what Greenlanders believe, the push to annex the world’s largest island by the Trump administration has dominated cross-Atlantic relations in the early weeks of 2026. Trump’s desire for Greenland originated in 2018, according to an article in Time Magazine citing former Trump aides, when he was informed that Denmark regained political control of Pituffik Space Base from the United States after the Cold War ended. He viewed this handover as an example of Europeans taking advantage of America, a perspective he has expressed frequently, and is central to his foreign policy. Trump floated the idea of buying Greenland during his first term, but Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the idea “absurd,” leading to a cancelled visit.

Trump spent much of the beginning of his second term pressing this sentiment. He repeatedly refused to rule out the use of force and emphasized how the Greenlandic people were “MAGA,” undermining both Danish sovereignty and the desires of the residents. In early 2025, director of White House personnel Sergio Gor with influential MAGA advocates Charlie Kirk, and Donald Trump Jr., visited Greenland. In March, Vice President J.D. Vance followed suit, to significant protest. These visits paled in comparison to the intensity of Trump’s renewed push in 2026. 

On January 3, shortly after the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller declared that America had a right to take Greenland by force, while his wife, Katie Miller, posted a map of Greenland with an American flag superimposed on it on X, captioned “SOON.” These actions preceded a statement from the White House saying force was “always an option,” a letter from Trump to the Norwegian government stating that because he was not offered a Nobel Prize he no longer felt “obligation to think purely of Peace.” This was followed on January 20 by a statement from Trump that there is "no going back" on annexation.

On January 21, Trump reversed his position on Greenland at Davos, where the World Economic Forum held its annual conference. He stated that he would not use military force, that a “framework” was already in place to increase US presence in Greenland, and repeatedly appeared to confuse Greenland with Iceland. While Danish and NATO officials denied that any deal had been formed which changed Greenland’s sovereignty, Trump appeared to consider the matter closed and shifted his focus elsewhere. 

This seemingly manufactured crisis leaves a key question: Why does Trump want Greenland? The two conventional explanations often cited by Trump administration officials, security concerns and resource extraction, are somewhat unsatisfying to critics. The United States already had full base rights in Greenland and relatively open access to its mineral resources, while Denmark has expressed willingness to negotiate opening Greenland to American troops and businesses, as long as Greenland’s sovereignty remained unquestioned. Trump’s concerns over Russian and Chinese influence are generally contested by security experts who argue that Russia is too preoccupied with the war in Ukraine to influence an island completely within NATO territory a thousand miles away, while China’s influence has already been blocked by US and Denmark. Either way, Greenland and Denmark have allowed the US full maneuverability to respond to these potential threats without altering the sovereignty of Greenland.

If security concerns and resource extraction are not what Trump is interested in, what is motivating the administration? Senior Fellow at The Arctic Institute Andreas Østhagen posits a third option: a renewal of the Monroe Doctrine. Trump has repeatedly articulated that the U.S. must reestablish this 1823 declaration by fifth U.S. President James Monroe, warning  European colonial powers  that the United States would block any attempts to influence any countries in the Western Hemisphere. Østhagen believes the Trump administration’s “argument is that the US should decide what happens in its immediate vicinity, in the same way that Russia wants to control what happens in Estonia, Ukraine and Moldova, and China in Vietnam, Mongolia and Taiwan.”

This view aligns with some concerns raised by the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ analysis of 2025’s National Security Strategy published by the White House. This document suggests that Europe is undergoing “civilizational erasure” due to a combination of mass migration and the increasing power of the European Union, and calls for support of nationalist movements within European countries. Director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program and Stuart Center at CSIS, Max Bergmann, suggested that this interference could cause a rift within NATO that threatens the alliance’s coherence. Trump has had a strained relationship with NATO for years, even threatening to withdraw from the alliance in 2018–though a 2023 law now requires approval from the Senate to formally withdraw from NATO.

Trump’s turnarounds leave the future of US-Greenland relations uncertain, and negotiations with Denmark are ongoing. While this high-stakes geopolitical tussle plays out in Washington, Copenhagen, Brussels, and Davos, the people of Greenland remain steadfast in their desire for self-rule. Protests against Trump have continued to gather hundreds in Nuuk, as the Munich Security Conference this February is expected to see continued disputes and negotiations over the island. Speaking at this conference, Prime Minister Frederiksen stated that Trump’s interest in Greenland is “unfortunately not over.”