COPENHAGEN — Denmark’s foreign minister said he and his Greenlandic counterpart will meet U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House tomorrow, a high-stakes attempt to shift escalating rhetoric over Greenland into face-to-face diplomacy as President Donald Trump presses to take control of the Arctic island.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt requested the meeting with Rubio after Trump recently intensified threats to take over Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. “U.S. Vice President JD Vance also wanted to participate in the meeting, and he will host the meeting, which will therefore be held at the White House,” Rasmussen told reporters in Copenhagen. “Our reason for seeking the meeting we have now been given was to move this whole discussion… into a meeting room where we can look each other in the eye and talk about these things,” he said.
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The diplomatic push comes as a Republican lawmaker in Florida introduced legislation to annex Greenland and admit it as the 51st U.S. state. Rep. Randy Fine said his bill would authorize Trump “to take whatever steps necessary to annex or acquire Greenland” and would require the administration to deliver a report to Congress outlining changes to federal law needed to make statehood possible. “Greenland is not a distant outpost we can afford to ignore — it is a vital national security asset,” Fine said in a statement.
While Denmark has ruled Greenland for centuries, the territory has steadily expanded self-government since 1979 and is moving toward eventual independence — a goal shared by all parties represented in its parliament. Copenhagen retains authority over foreign affairs and defense under the current arrangement, a structure that a U.S. annexation would upend.
Security concerns around the Arctic are set to feature prominently in the coming days. Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said he will meet NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Monday to discuss the region, with Motzfeldt also taking part. The session underscores how rapidly the debate over Greenland’s future has shifted from political rhetoric to alliance-level contingency planning.
European officials warned that any forced move on Greenland could reverberate far beyond the Arctic. European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius said EU member states would be obligated to assist Denmark if it faced military aggression. He also echoed Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s assessment that such a scenario would be devastating for transatlantic security. “I agree with the Danish Prime Minister that it will be the end of NATO, but also among people it will be very, very negative,” Kubilius said at a security conference in Sweden.
By seeking a White House meeting, Denmark and Greenland aim to temper intensifying talk of annexation with a direct, high-level exchange, even as political momentum in Washington gathers behind the push. Whether tomorrow’s conversation can lower the temperature may hinge on how the parties frame the island’s strategic value — and on whether the United States is prepared to engage with Greenland’s existing autonomy and long-stated path toward independence, rather than press for a change in sovereignty.
For now, the meeting signals a pivot from public threats to private dialogue at the highest levels. The stakes encompass not only the future of a vast, resource-rich Arctic territory but also the cohesion of NATO and Europe’s security architecture — and the credibility of international norms that govern how borders change, or do not, in the 21st century.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
