Trump says he may impose tariffs on countries that ‘don’t agree’ with Greenland’s plans – National
US President Donald Trump suggested on Friday that he may punish countries with tariffs if they do not support US control of Greenland, a message that came as a Congressional delegation sought to ease tensions in the Danish capital.
Trump has insisted for months that the US should take control of Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark, and said earlier this week that anything less than the Arctic island being in US hands “will not be acceptable.”
During an unrelated event at the White House on rural health care, he recounted Friday how he threatened European allies with a drug tax.
“I can do that for Greenland too,” Trump said. “I might impose taxes on countries if they don’t agree with Greenland, because we need Greenland to protect the country. So I can do that,” he said.
He has not previously spoken about using prices to try to force the issue.
Earlier this week, the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met in Washington this week with US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
That meeting did not resolve deep disagreements but produced an agreement to establish a working group – Denmark and the White House then offered very different public views.
European leaders emphasized that only Denmark and Greenland should decide on issues affecting the area, and Denmark said this week that it is increasing its military presence in Greenland in cooperation with its allies.
Relationships ‘must grow’
In Copenhagen, a group of senators and members of the House of Representatives met on Friday with Danish and Greenlandic lawmakers, as well as leaders including Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
The leader of the team, Sen. Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, thanked the group’s leaders for “225 years of being a good and loyal friend and partner” and said that “we had a strong, strong conversation about how we extend that into the future.”
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Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said after meeting with lawmakers that the visit shows a strong relationship over decades and “is something we need to nurture.” He told reporters that “Greenland needs to be seen as a partner, not as a commodity, and I think that’s what you hear about this team.”
The tone has been compared to that coming from the White House. Trump has sought to justify his calls for US intervention by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their own designs on Greenland, which holds vast amounts of untapped minerals. The White House has not ruled out taking the land by force.
“We have heard so many lies, to be honest and so much exaggeration about the threats against Greenland,” said Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic politician and member of the Danish parliament who participated in Friday’s meetings. “And mostly, I would say that the threats we’re seeing right now are coming from the American side.”
Murkowski emphasized the role of Congress in spending and conveying messages to voters.
“I think it’s important to emphasize that if you ask the American people if they think it’s a good idea for the United States to get Greenland, the majority, about 75%, will say, we don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.
And Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Democrat, Murkowski has introduced bipartisan legislation that would prohibit the use of funds by the US Department of Defense or the Department of State to enter or control Greenland or the jurisdiction of any NATO member state without the consent of that alliance or authorization from the North Atlantic Council.
Inuit council criticizes White House
The conflict is very intense in the lives of the people of Greenland. The Prime Minister of Greenland, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said on Tuesday “if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU.”
The chairman of the Nuuk, Greenland-based Inuit Circumpolar Council, which represents about 180,000 Inuit from Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and the Russian region of Chukotka in international affairs, said that the continued statements from the White House that the US should own Greenland give “a clear picture of how the American administration views the people of Greenland, the way several American administrations view the Indigenous people.”
Sara Olsvig told the Associated Press in Nuuk that the problem is “how one of the biggest powers in the world treats other people who have less power than it. And that’s really concerning.”
The indigenous Inuit in Greenland do not want to be colonized again, he said.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
