The president of the United States, , usually despises what he ignores. If you add to that the blindness due to one’s own, particular interest, what remains is the disregard and ridicule. This is what he has just shown towards the Prime Minister of Greenland, Jens-Frederik Nielsen. He doesn’t give a damn who he is, what he does and what he asks for. His only goal is to take away his island. For security reasons, he says. , more possibly.
Yesterday afternoon, Nielsen, in a respectful but firm tone, stated that his people would “prefer” Denmark over the United States when it comes to controlling its territory, which today is autonomous but within the European kingdom. “Greenland does not want anyone to own it or anyone to control it. If right now we had to choose between the US and Denmark, then we choose Denmark. This is not the time for internal disagreements, but for being together,” he said at a joint press conference with the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen.
This morning, the press asked Trump about this comment from premier and the Republican has replied with disdain. “Well, that’s his problem. I don’t agree with him. I don’t know who he is, I don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him,” he predicts. Trump claims his country needs to “own” Greenland to defend itself from Russia and China. The White House has suggested purchasing the island, but has not ruled out using force to annex it. That is the “problem”: that he wants to violate their sovereignty and take over the island.
Despite being the least populated territory, Greenland’s location between North America and the Arctic makes it ideal for early warning systems in case of missile attacks and for monitoring ships in the region. Trump has repeatedly said Greenland is vital to US national security, claiming without evidence that it was “covered with Russian and Chinese ships everywhere.”
Washington already has more than 100 military personnel permanently stationed at its , in the northwest corner of Greenland, a facility that has been operated by the country since . Under existing agreements with Denmark, the United States has the power to send as many troops as it wants to Greenland, and its authorities in Nuuk and Copenhagen have said they are open to that.
However, Trump insists that a leasing agreement was not enough: the United States “had to have ownership” and “NATO has to understand that.” That is why yesterday, at his press conference in Copenhagen, Frederiksen did not mince his words and condemned the “absolutely unacceptable pressure from our closest ally.” He warned, fatalistically, that “there are many signs that the hardest part is yet to come.”
Prime Minister of Greenland, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, and Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, on January 13, 2026, at a press conference in Copenhagen.
invasion plan
In the last few hours it has also been known, according to a report published by the newspaper from the United Kingdom, that Trump has asked the Joint Special Operations Command to develop an invasion plan for Greenland.
“Several sources say that the political ‘hawks’ surrounding the US president, led by political adviser Stephen Miller, have been so emboldened by the success of the operation to capture the Venezuelan leader that they want to move quickly to seize the island before Russia or China make a move,” he says. But such a dramatic move would put it at odds with its European partners and would effectively lead to the collapse of NATO.
How are things then?
- According to the London newspaper’s sources, the President has asked the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to prepare the invasion plan, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff resists this on the grounds that it would be illegal and would not have the support of Congress.
- “They have tried to distract Trump by talking about less controversial measures, such as intercepting – a clandestine network of hundreds of ships operated by Moscow to evade Western sanctions – or launching an attack against Iran,” they explain.
- Diplomats have prepared a simulation of what they describe as an “escalation scenario” in which Trump uses force or “political coercion” to sever Greenland’s ties with Denmark.
- A diplomatic cable describes the worst-case scenario as leading to “the destruction of NATO from within.”
- “Some European officials suspect that this is the real goal of the radical faction around Trump. Since Congress would not allow Trump to leave NATO, the occupation of Greenland could force the Europeans to leave NATO. If Trump wants to end NATO, this could be the most convenient way to do it,” maintains the Mail.
Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., has also introduced a bill to authorize Trump to take steps to annex the European Arctic island.
Key meeting
And all this occurs within hours of the meeting that the Danish Foreign Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, and his Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, will have today in Washington with the American Secretary of State, , and his vice president, . It will be in the White House, although no, Trump will not be there, except as a surprise.
The appointment, unusual in its substance, form and venue, can mark a before and after in the three-way relationship. Or not, with Trump involved anything is possible.
“The limit is that you cannot buy Greenland. We are together in the kingdom with Denmark and we will always be part of the Western alliance. The future of Greenland will be decided by the Greenlanders, as stated in the Statute of Autonomy. With that message we travel to the United States tomorrow,” Nielsen, the island’s prime minister, stressed yesterday.
To try to calm Trump, several European countries, led by Germany and the United Kingdom, have begun to study the possibility of NATO increasing its presence in Greenland.
The German Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, specified this Tuesday that the debate does not focus on sending troops, but on surveillance operations, patrols, reconnaissance and maneuvers. “Taking into account the size of the island of Greenland (2.1 million square kilometers) and its very small population of 55,000 inhabitants, of which between 25,000 and 30,000 live in Nuuk, it is clear that we are not talking about a normal territory. This means that complete protection there cannot be achieved only with the presence of troops,” he noted.
The Secretary General of NATO, this Tuesday, again avoided referring to the conflict, alluding to the fact that I cannot comment in public on a debate between two members of the Alliance such as the United States and Denmark, although he maintained that “there are no disagreements” between the allies regarding the security of the Arctic.
