Danish foreign minister says Vance will host meeting on Greenland in Washington
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark’s foreign minister said Tuesday that U.S. Vice President JD Vance will host a meeting with him and his Greenlandic counterpart in Washington this week as tensions spiral over the Trump administration’s desire for control of Greenland.
The vast Arctic island is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, a NATO ally of the U.S. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his counterpart from Greenland, Vivian Motzfeldt, had been widely expected to meet on Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, though the meeting hadn’t officially been confirmed.
Løkke Rasmussen told reporters after a meeting of the Danish parliament’s foreign policy committee on Tuesday that Vance had expressed a wish to take part and that he will host the meeting at the White House, with Rubio in attendance. Neither the White House nor Vance’s office responded immediately to emails and text messages seeking comment.
Løkke Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister, has been foreign minister since 2022 in the government of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
Tensions have grown between Washington, Denmark and Greenland this month as President Donald Trump and his administration push the issue and the White House considers a range of options, including military force, to acquire the vast Arctic island. Trump reiterated his argument that the U.S. needs to “take Greenland,” otherwise Russia or China would, in comments aboard Air Force One on Sunday.
He said he’d rather “make a deal” for the territory, “but one way or the other, we’re going to have Greenland.”
A bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation is headed to Copenhagen for meetings on Friday and Saturday in an attempt to show unity between the United States and Denmark.
Before that, Frederiksen plans to meet Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, along with the leader of the Faroe Islands, Denmark’s other semi-autonomous territory, in Copenhagen as part of a periodic gathering of parliamentarians from the Danish realm.