President Donald Trump said this week that he believes the United States will annex Greenland, the world’s largest island.
Trump made the remarks to reporters while speaking in the Oval Office to NATO chief Mark Rutte when asked about the “potential annexation of Greenland.”
“Yeah, well, I think it’ll happen,” Trump said. “And I’m just thinking, I didn’t give it much thought before, but I’m sitting with a man that could be very instrumental.”
Turning to Rutte, Trump said, “You know, Mark, we need that for international security, not just security, international. We have a lot of our favorite players cruising around the coast, and we have to be careful, and we’ll be talking to you.”
Rutte said that on the matter of NATO being involved in the U.S. acquiring Greenland, he would leave that to the U.S. and Denmark to sort out.
“But when it comes to the high north in the Arctic, you are totally right,” Rutte told Trump. “The Chinese are now using these routes. We know that the Russians are the army [in the region]. We know we have lack of ice breakers.”
“So the fact that the seven outside Russia, seven Arctic countries, working together on this, under U.S. leadership, is very important to make sure that that region, that part of the world, stays safe and we know things are changing there, and we have to be there,” he added.
POTUS on acquiring Greenland: “I think it will happen… We need that for international security.” pic.twitter.com/0j32jk0QL2
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 13, 2025
Trump’s comments come after two political parties that favor independence from Denmark won in the country’s parliamentary elections this week.
The country’s center-right Demokraatit Party, which favors gradual independence from Denmark, won 29.9% of the vote, meaning it will have to form a coalition with other parties to form a government.
The top opposition party, Naleraq, which has a positive view of Trump and favors rapid independence from Denmark, came in second place with 24.5% of the vote, according to CNN.
Inuit Ataqatigiit, the leftist incumbent ruling party, came in third with 21.4% of the vote, while another left-wing party, Siumut, came in fourth with 14.7%, the report said.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Demokraatit’s leader, said people in his country wanted “change,” but that does not mean they want “want independence tomorrow” and instead want to wait that there is a “good foundation” set before the island becomes fully independent from Denmark.
Acquiring Greenland has been a top foreign policy objective for Trump as he seeks to expand the U.S. for economic and national security reasons.
During his address to Congress last week, he said, “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
Greenland is located in the Arctic Circle, which is a strategic location for missile defense systems, as incoming ballistic missiles from adversaries like Russia would travel through the region to hit the U.S.
The region is also becoming critical for shipping lanes as some of the ice melts, making the waters more navigable.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in January that communist China was trying to stage operations in Greenland to take control of shipping lanes the same way that it has in the Panama Canal.
Rubio said that they are installing facilities that give them access to the Arctic under the cover of a Chinese company, but that, in reality, “serve a dual purpose, that in a moment of conflict, they could send naval vessels to that facility and operate from there.”
