European military heads to Greenland as Trump’s ambitions for island undeterred by talks

By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen

NUUK, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Military personnel from France and Germany headed to Greenland on Thursday as Denmark and its allies prepared for exercises to try to assure U.S. President Donald Trump over its security as he pushes to acquire the island.

A meeting of officials from the United States, Denmark and Greenland on Wednesday avoided the public humiliation meted out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last year, but also produced no quick fix for the dispute.

Trump has said the strategically located and mineral-rich island is vital to U.S. security and the United States must own it to prevent Russia or China occupying it. He has said all options are on the table for securing the territory, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark.

He says Denmark is not capable of warding off Russian and Chinese influence in the Arctic region.

PROMISE TO BEEF UP ARCTIC DEFENCE

Greenland and Denmark say the island is not for sale, that threats of force are reckless and security concerns should be resolved among allies.

Prominent EU countries have backed Denmark with many leaders warning a U.S. military seizure of the island could in effect spell the end of NATO.

Ahead of the meeting, Greenland and Denmark said they had begun to increase their military presence in and around Greenland in close cooperation with NATO allies, as part of their promise to beef up Arctic defence.

European allies including Germany, France, Sweden and Norway have said they are sending military staff to Greenland to begin preparations for larger drills later this year.

“The Danish Armed Forces, together with a number of Arctic and European allies, will explore in the coming weeks how an increased presence and exercise activity in the Arctic can be implemented in practice,” the Danish Ministry of Defence said.

So far the scale of the planned military build up has not been made public, but the initial deployments appeared to be small. The German Armed Forces were deploying a reconnaissance team of 13 personnel to Nuuk on Thursday morning aboard an Airbus A400M transport aircraft, the German Defence Ministry said.

Nonetheless, the European military increase to Greenland was a message to the U.S. administration, Marc Jacobsen, an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College, told Reuters.

“There are two messages … one is to deter, is to show that ‘if you decide to do something militarily, we’re ready to defend Greenland’,” he said.

“And the other purpose is to say: ‘Well, we take your critique seriously, we increase our presence, take care of our sovereignty, and improve surveillance over Greenland’.”

TALKS AGREE TO WORKING GROUP

After the talks at the White House with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt said the U.S. and Denmark would form a working group to discuss a broad array of concerns regarding the island.

But they also acknowledged that Washington had not budged on its position that it must acquire Greenland, an outcome they said would represent an unacceptable breach of sovereignty.

Late on Wednesday, a Danish Air Force plane landed at Nuuk airport and personnel in military fatigues disembarked for the exercises, footage showed.

France was also joining the deployment. “The first French military elements are already en route. Others will follow,” President Emmanuel Macron said on X.

Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, France’s ambassador to the Poles, told France Info radio: “We will show the United States that NATO is there, that Denmark has dramatically increased its surveillance capabilities in Greenland and that the European Union is contributing to ensure the national security of the region as a whole.”

(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Nuuk and Terje Solsvik in Oslo; Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris, Tom Little in Copenhagen and Gwladys Fouche in Oslo; Writing by Niklas Pollard; Editing by Alison Williams)