Just over an hour, without cameras or staged greetings. The highly anticipated meeting between a high-level delegation from Denmark and Greenland with their counterparts from the United States, held at the White House with the presence of Vice President J. D. Vance, concluded on Wednesday with no major breakthroughs, but apparently without a larger crisis. "It has been a frank but constructive conversation," explained Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, admitting that both parties still disagree on the future of Greenland, but have agreed to create a "high-level working group" that will meet "in the coming weeks" to discuss how to address US security concerns. "We want to work closely, but it must be a respectful cooperation. It is not easy to think of innovative solutions when you wake up every morning to different threats (...) We did not manage to change the US position. It is evident that the president wants to conquer Greenland," added Rasmussen.
Serious faces of the Europeans, increasingly alarmed by the pressures and threats from their NATO partners, completely determined to keep a strategic territory for Arctic security. The minister recalled that "the United States already has extensive military access to Greenland and under the 1951 defense agreement, it can always request an increase in its presence in Greenland. If the United States has any other requests in this regard, we would consider them constructively. The discussions focused on how to ensure long-term security in Greenland, and in this aspect, our perspectives still differ. I must say that the president has made his opinion clear, and our position is different," he stated. "We do not want to belong to the US," said the Greenlandic Foreign Minister.
Copenhagen's goal was to calm the situation, halt the escalation of recent hours and the increasing threats from Trump and change the terms of a discussion that the US is framing around what it considers an existential threat to the territory... But from Russia or China. And find a way to address everyone's needs. "If that is feasible, I do not know. I hope, and I would like to express it this way, that we can lower the temperature we have had during the last 13 months with these ongoing discussions and social media. This is, in fact, the first time we were able to sit down at the highest political level to discuss it. It was also a great opportunity for Vivian and me to challenge the existing narrative because it is not a true narrative about Chinese warships everywhere. According to our intelligence, we have not had a Chinese warship in Greenland for about a decade. So, from that perspective, it was a very constructive meeting, as I said, a frank discussion between equal partners, and now we at least have to try," he added.
Nothing was normal in this meeting. It is not normal for a country in the EU, the one that suffered the most casualties proportionally while assisting the US in the Iraq war, to be cornered in this way. It is not usual for the Vice President of the world's leading power to join a meeting of Foreign Ministers, but it is not surprising after his quick visit a few months ago to a US military base in Greenland to make it clear that they are serious. Nor is it necessary to clarify that his country does not have "only dog sleds" for defense ("The Kingdom of Denmark has already increased its own contribution by allocating additional funds for military capabilities, not sleds for dogs, but ships, drones, fighter jets"). And it is not at all normal, or at least it was not until very recently, for the US President to say, just before the arrival of his guests, that any scenario that does not involve his country owning a friendly territory is unacceptable.
"The United States needs Greenland for its national security. It is vital for the Golden Dome we are building. NATO should lead the way for us to obtain it. If we do not, Russia or China will, and that will not happen! Militarily, without the vast power of the United States, much of which I built during my first term and which I am now raising to a new and even higher level, NATO would not be an effective or deterrent force, not by a long shot! They know it, and so do I. NATO becomes much more formidable and effective with Greenland in US hands. Anything less than that is unacceptable," the president wrote on his social media, setting the tone before today's meeting.
"I am not ruling out any option. Greenland is very important for national security, including Denmark's. And the problem is that Denmark cannot do anything about it if Russia or China want to occupy it, but we can do everything possible. Everyone saw it last week with Venezuela. We can do everything possible to prevent those kinds of things from happening. We cannot rely on Denmark to defend itself. They were talking about sending a dog sled, and they were serious about it," he insisted hours later, from the Oval Office, but before receiving a briefing on the negotiations' content.
Many feared these days a similar trap to the one Volodimir Zelenski faced last year in the Oval Office. But neither Trump was present nor was there live coverage. On the American side were Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, his top advisors, and the ambassador in Copenhagen, Ken Howery. On the Danish side, Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, with his top aides, especially Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen, a veteran who was the Secretary-General of the Council in Brussels for years, one of the key positions in the EU, and who, at the end of the meeting, fist-bumped his boss, as a sign of relief or satisfaction with his performance. Also in the delegation were Vivian Motzfeldt, the Foreign Minister of Greenland, with her team, including her special representative for the US in Washington.
The tension was evident and inevitable. On Tuesday, when asked about the Greenland Prime Minister's words stating that he did not want to be part of the US and preferred to maintain his relationship with Denmark, Trump mocked him, as he has repeatedly done about the European country's ability to defend the territory, saying that the only way they have is to send more dog sleds. "Who said that? Well, that's his problem. I do not agree with him. I do not know who he is, I do not know anything about him. But that will be a big problem for him," he concluded with absolute disdain.
In normal conditions, a meeting of this kind should have almost exclusively focused on initiating a dialogue on security, cooperation, and how the US can increase its presence in Greenland, which it de facto controls with its military bases or radar stations. But Vance's presence, the unofficial responsible for achieving Danish resignation from the territory, and the brevity of the meeting leave little room for optimism. While the two sides were talking, the White House released a cartoon with two dog sleds and flags, urging the inhabitants of Greenland to choose between two paths, only two: the one leading to Washington or the one leading to Russia and China.
"We, the Kingdom of Denmark, still believe that the long-term security of Greenland can be ensured within the current framework, the 1951 Agreement on the Defense of Greenland and the NATO Treaty. For us, ideas that do not respect the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark or the right to self-determination of the Greenlandic people are, of course, completely unacceptable. Therefore, we still have a fundamental disagreement, but we also agree to disagree, so we will continue to dialogue. We have decided to form a high-level working group to explore if we can find a common solution. In our view, this group should focus on how to address US security concerns while respecting the Kingdom of Denmark's red lines. We hope that this group will meet for the first time in a few weeks," the Danish and Greenlandic ministers said at the door of the European embassy in Washington.
Trump has raised the issue of ownership from the first day of his return to power. Whether through a purchase or by force. Sources close to Trump cited by various media outlets say he wants to go down in history for the largest territorial acquisition in the last century, and that he doesn't care about Congress's powers regarding annexations. NBC, citing "three familiar sources," timely reported on Wednesday morning that the United States could have to pay up to 700 billion dollars for an acquisition. "The estimate was prepared by academics and former U.S. officials as part of the planning around Trump's aspiration to acquire the 2,000,000 square kilometer island as strategic protection in the Arctic against the United States' main adversaries, according to these sources. It imposes a cost of more than half of the annual budget of the Department of Defense on Trump's national security priority," the article says.