Saturday January 17, 2026
European troops land in Greenland as transatlantic rift deepens over Trump’s acquisition push
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NUUK, Greenland — Soldiers from France, Germany and other European nations have begun arriving in Greenland to bolster the Arctic island’s security, a rapid show of force that underscores widening disagreement between the United States and its European allies over President Donald Trump’s stated desire to acquire the semiautonomous Danish territory.
France has sent 15 soldiers and Germany 13, with Norway and Sweden also participating, officials said. The deployment has been cast by participating capitals as a symbolic recognition exercise, with troops expected to plant the European Union flag in Greenland to signal allied presence and solidarity.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that “the first French military elements are already en route,” as French authorities confirmed members of a mountain infantry unit had reached Nuuk, Greenland’s capital. Paris described the two-day mission as a proof of concept for how quickly European Union forces can deploy to the Arctic if needed.
Germany’s Defense Ministry said it was dispatching a 13-person reconnaissance team to Greenland on Thursday.
The European moves follow a tense Washington meeting among the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers and top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, to discuss Trump’s plans to take over the territory, which is rich in mineral resources and increasingly strategic amid rising Russian and Chinese interest in the Arctic.
“We didn’t manage to change the American position,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters afterward. “It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.” Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt urged cooperation with the U.S. but said that does not mean the island wants to be “owned by the United States.” The ministers said a working group would continue discussions on control and security in the Arctic.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said European troop movements were unlikely to affect the president’s calculus. “I don’t think troops in Europe impact the president’s decision-making process, nor does it impact his goal of the acquisition of Greenland at all,” she said.
Trump, speaking in the Oval Office on Wednesday, argued the U.S. must act to counter rivals. “If we don’t go in, Russia is going to go in, and China is going to go in. And there’s not a thing Denmark can do about it, but we can do everything about it,” he said.
Denmark separately announced plans to increase its own military presence in Greenland. Reporting from Nuuk, Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands said Copenhagen has two aims: to convince Washington that Denmark takes Arctic defense seriously and to create a measure of deterrence by placing NATO personnel on the island. “No one is thinking that any of the troops here could stop a U.S. invasion if that happened, but it would make it more complicated,” he said.
In Paris, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler reported a “sense of urgency” among European governments, “particularly after the U.S.’s actions in Venezuela,” adding that allies increasingly take Trump’s rhetoric at face value.
Moscow, meanwhile, criticized what it called Western attempts to justify escalation by citing Russia and China. “First they came up with the idea that there were some aggressors, and then that they were ready to protect someone from these aggressors,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, calling the situation evidence of inconsistency in a “rules-based world order” promoted by the West. Russia’s ambassador to Belgium, Denis Gonchar, blamed NATO for “militarisation of the Arctic,” saying the region should remain a zone of peace and equal cooperation, according to Al Jazeera’s reporting from Moscow.
The geopolitical wrangling has stirred anxiety among Inuit communities. In Ilulissat on Greenland’s western coast, Karl Sandgreen, who heads the Ilulissat Icefjord visitor center, voiced concern for local traditions as talk of a mineral rush intensifies. “We are totally different. We are Inuit, and we’ve been living here for thousands of years,” he said. “This is my daughter’s and my son’s future, not a future for people who are thinking about resources.”
With a new working group, mounting military postures and competing great-power narratives, the dispute over Greenland now blends symbolism and hard power — and places the Arctic, once framed as a low-tension frontier, at the center of a fraught transatlantic debate.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
