Trump-Greenland latest: Rubio to meet Danish officials next week to discuss crisis

Mr Rubio added that US officials will meet with their Danish counterparts next week to discuss Greenland.

The meeting follows repeated threats by Trump to seize the territory using military action.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has refused to rule out using military action to take over Greenland.

Speaking to reporters in Washington DC, Mr Rubio said that Trump “retains the option” to invade the territory, which is a part of NATO member Greenland.

“As a diplomat I would prefer we settle this in a different way. We tried to settle it that way in Venezuela”, he added.

Greenland is now the subject of a major international dispute, with Denmark warning the US away from its semi autonomous territory. But how did the small European country come to run such a large expanse of land thousands of kilometres away?

Greenland was inhabited by Inuit peoples from Asia and North America intermittently from around 2,500 BC. Around 985 AD, Vikings led by Erik the Red settled in southern Greenland, farming and building churches. Around the same time, ancestors of today’s Inuit arrived, living as hunters and gatherers. They became the dominant culture, pushing out Viking settlers around 1400.

Denmark colonised Greenland in the 18th century when missionary Hans Egede arrived in 1721, marking the start of the colonial era.

In 1916, the United States bought the Danish West Indies – now the U.S. Virgin Islands – for $25 million in gold. As part of that treaty, Washington declared it would not object to the Danish government extending its “political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland,” formally recognising Danish sovereignty.

Relations have been strained by revelations of historical misconduct. In the 1950s, Danish authorities forcibly relocated Inuit to larger towns, marginalising the practices and languages of indigenous people who make up almost 90 per cent of the population. Denmark apologised in 2022 for a 1950s experiment that sent Greenlandic children to Denmark.

Records show thousands of women and girls as young as 13 were fitted with intrauterine devices without consent between 1966 and 1991, when Greenland gained control over healthcare. Denmark apologised in 2025 for the decades-long birth control campaign.

A 2025 documentary alleged Denmark and companies profited from a cryolite mine between 1853 and 1987 without benefiting locals. Cryolite, used in aluminum production, was mined in Greenland at the world’s largest deposit.

Following the coalition of the willing’s Paris meeting, it is clear that the moment where Western powers feel fully confident about their own security has not yet been reached – but Donald Trump now knows that the future of Greenland is not for Washington to determine…

Read The Independent’s editorial:

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the US would always support Nato and that Russia and China only feared the alliance as long as the United States was a member.

“We will always be there for Nato, even if they won’t be there for us,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Trump and administration officials have recently made a series of threats to take over Greenland, sharply raising tensions with Nato member Denmark.

A senior Finnish parliamentarian has called on Nato to convene to discuss the issue of Greenland.

Johannes Koskinen, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Finland’s parliament, said Nato allies should “address whether something needs to be done and whether the United States should be brought into line in the sense that it cannot disregard jointly agreed plans in order to pursue its own power ambitions”.

The US military maintains a permanent presence at Pituffik air base in northwest Greenland under a 1951 agreement granting freedom to build bases with Danish and Greenlandic notification.

Denmark has historically accommodated the U.S. presence because Copenhagen does not have the capability to defend Greenland and benefits from U.S. security guarantees through Nato.

But why does Trump want Greenland?

The US president has said acquiring Greenland is a national security priority. The shortest route from Europe to North America runs via Greenland, making it important for the US ballistic missile early-warning system. Nuuk is closer to New York than to Copenhagen.

Greenland sits at a geopolitical crossroads amid Arctic militarisation by Nato, Russia and China. The US wants to expand its military footprint, including radars to monitor waters used by Russian vessels and submarines. The island also holds mineral, oil and gas wealth, though development has been slow.

Spain’s foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Wednesday that Spain was not aware of any plan by France regarding Greenland, nor that such a plan had been shared with other European partners.

France said earlier on Wednesday it was discussing a response with European partners should the United States act on its threat to take over Greenland.

“We are not aware of a plan by the French in Greenland, nor that one has been shared with other European partners,” Mr Albares told a news briefing after a cabinet meeting.

He also said that regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine, countries negotiating the cessation of hostilities were still far from a peace plan, adding that there was only an outline of ideas at this stage.

As we reported earlier, US forces were considering seizing the Venezuela-flagged Marinera oil tanker.

The tanker fled the Caribbean Sea when the US captured Nicolas Maduro at the beginning of the year, setting the stage for Donald Trump to issue several threats of US control over and interference in countries and territories worldwide – including Greenland.

Our political correspondent Athena Stavrou reports:

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said that there are “genuine security concerns” surrounding Greenland, and that Donald Trump has a “point”.

However, Mr Farage said the future of Greenland was for the people of Greenland and Denmark to decide, and warned military that if Trump used military force it could be “the end of Nato”.

He went on to say the world is moving into “national self interest”, which he said “will not be a bad thing provided those countries and democratic where leaders can be held to account”.

He said: “The concept of international law outdated…it’s no longer fit for purpose in 2026.”