Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Wednesday made clear that Denmark stands prepared to defend Greenland, pushing back against President Trump's latest comments about acquiring the autonomous territory. Speaking to reporters ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, Frederiksen asserted, “We are ready to defend every inch of NATO, including our own territory.”
Frederiksen invoked the alliance's collective defense clause, saying, “One of the reasons why we built NATO many, many years ago is if anything happens to one of us, then everybody should stand up for each other.” She added that Article 5 serves as “our insurance,” and called on “everyone to respect our territorial integrity and our sovereignty,” according to The New York Times. The prime minister said she had no plans to discuss Greenland while in Ankara.
Trump reignited his long-running fixation on Greenland ahead of the summit, telling reporters the island is “very important” to the United States and “doesn't help Denmark.” He asserted, “That should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark,” and complained about U.S. spending on European defense, saying, “We don't have to spend any money.” He also warned Europe to “be careful” with immigration and energy policies, or else “you're not going to have a Europe anymore.”
The president's renewed push has already strained ties within the alliance. Trump claimed the response to his Greenland annexation efforts “hurt” his relationship with NATO, an organization he has repeatedly threatened to leave. The tensions echo earlier clashes, as a former NATO envoy said Trump's Greenland push shatters alliance trust.
The standoff escalated in January, ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, when the Trump administration reportedly threatened military force to seize the island. After talks in Davos between Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, the president claimed they had reached a “framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland.”
Rutte, however, focused on praising Trump's pressure on allies to boost defense spending. “Without you in this chair,” he told Trump, “Grab the win. It's there.” NATO members agreed at last year's summit to invest 5 percent of GDP on defense, with 3.5 percent for budgets and 1.5 percent for infrastructure to speed troop and equipment movement.
The Trump administration has called for a “NATO 3.0” to replace what it calls a “paper tiger.” The president doubled down on Wednesday by signaling the U.S. could block all trade with Spain, as Trump demanded total trade cutoff with Spain at the NATO summit. Last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a six-month review of U.S. troop deployments in Europe, insisting the alliance must move “fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading.”
Hegseth criticized NATO's recent trajectory, telling allies in Brussels, “NATO lost its way. NATO 2.0 was an era of distraction, deindustrialization and demilitarization. It was an era of free riding, and those were lost years that we're not going back to.” He added, “And that's why, at the Department of War, we've been so clear and so candid to restore NATO's core military role and character.”
The confrontation over Greenland comes as five key flashpoints emerge as Trump meets nervous NATO allies in Turkey, with sovereignty, spending, and trade all on the line. Frederiksen's firm stance underscores Denmark's resolve to hold the line, even as Trump's transactional approach threatens to redraw the alliance's boundaries.
