Trump Says He Won’t Use Force Over Greenland, Seeks Negotiations

President Donald Trump upped the pressure on Europe to cede control of Greenland or face the consequences, saying that NATO owes it to the US to grant it full rights to the Arctic island.

In a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday after prompting days of transatlantic tensions over his plans, Trump said that he was seeking “immediate negotiations” on acquiring the sovereign Danish territory for national security reasons.

The president ruled out the use of military force, but he insinuated that he would weigh Europe’s response to his demands when considering the US commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization going forward.

“You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember,” the president said.

Denmark’s immediate reaction was “no.”

Bloomberg's David Gura joins to discuss on Bloomberg Intelligence.

“We will not enter into any negotiations on the basis of giving up fundamental principles,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in Copenhagen. “That is something we will never do.” It “goes without saying” that Danes clearly reject ceding Greenland to the US, he added.

Trump, though, cast the request as a “small ask” compared to the defense shield that the US has offered NATO countries for decades.

“What I’m asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located, that can play a vital role in world peace and world protection,” he said.

Trump’s speech was closely watched for any signs that he was backing off his demands to take the world’s largest island, after triggering strong pushback from multiple allies from eastern Europe to the Nordic nations and heavyweights Germany, France and the UK. European Union leaders are planning an extraordinary summit to discuss a response to Trump’s threats on Greenland and associated tariffs on European nations that oppose him.

Still, his vow not to use force is likely to prompt at least some exhalation in European capitals and on Wall Street.

“That’s probably the biggest statement I made, because people thought I would use force,” he said. “I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”

Finnish President Alexander Stubb told Finland’s broadcaster YLE that Trump removing force from the table meant “the catastrophe has been avoided,” and diplomatic work should proceed on strengthening Arctic securities

In his speech, Trump doubled down on his desires, deriding Europe’s liberal democracies, their governments’ policies, NATO’s effectiveness and singling out individual leaders including Canada’s Mark Carney and Emmanuel Macron of France for criticism.

Faced with Washington’s intransigence, Greenland’s government is already making preparations for an invasion, though it’s still seen as an unlikely scenario. Canada’s military has meanwhile modeled how it would respond to an American invasion after Trump publicly talked about the country as a potential 51st state, according to a report in the Globe and Mail.

Denmark’s Foreign Minister Rasmussen missed the Davos speech as he was meeting with parliament’s foreign affairs committee in Copenhagen, but said he’d been briefed on it.

“What is clear after this speech is that the president’s ambition [to own Greenland] remains intact,” he told reporters. “It is, in isolation, positive that it is being said that military force will not be used, but that does not make the problem go away. The challenge is still there.”

Denmark plans to continue on the diplomatic track agreed last week in Washington, he said, adding that “in 2026, you do not trade people, you trade with people.”

Trump’s sales pitch occasionally veered off script. He claimed that the US had selflessly established military bases on Greenland in World War II, before acknowledging moments later it was in the country’s own self interest. He also repeatedly referred to Greenland as Iceland.

But the crux of Trump’s argument was that the US needed full control of the island because it was critical to the deployment of his “Golden Dome” missile defense system.

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