Denmark’s foreign minister dressed down the United States for its disrespect, hours after Vice President JD Vance visited an American military base in Greenland.
Speaking in a two-minute video message on Friday night, in which he addressed Americans directly, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen appealed for an end to the hostile messaging from Washington.
“Many accusations and many allegations have been made. And of course, we are open to criticism,” Rasmussen said. “But let me be completely honest: We do not appreciate the tone in which it is being delivered.”
Relations between Washington and Copenhagen have sunk to an all-time low since President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to seize Greenland, a self-ruling Danish territory, and jabs at Denmark for what he argues is a failure to properly defend the Arctic.
Trump has refused to rule out using military force or economic pressure to acquire the world’s largest island, which is about a four-hour flight from New York. His statements, which have ranged from promises to make Greenlanders “rich” to more aggressive overtures, have raised alarm in Denmark and Greenland, which have strongly rebuffed him.
Vance, who on Friday visited the Pituffik Space Base, an American military base in Greenland’s remote north, has also previously blasted Denmark for “not doing its job” on Arctic security.
He repeated that criticism on Friday, telling Greenlanders they would fare “better coming under the United States security umbrella than you have been under Denmark’s security umbrella” amid what he claimed were serious threats from Russia and China.
By Friday night, Rasmussen had clearly had enough.
“This is not how you speak to your close allies,” Denmark’s top diplomat said. “And I still consider Denmark and the United States to be close allies.”
Rasmussen said he accepted the U.S. argument that it “needs a greater military presence in Greenland, as Vice President Vance mentioned this evening,” and signaled his readiness to talk about it.
While the U.S. once staffed more than a dozen military installations in Greenland, including an experimental subterranean base powered by a small nuclear reactor, today the only outpost left is Pituffik Space Base.
“We — Denmark and Greenland — are very much open to discussing this with you, with an open mind,” Rasmussen said, adding Copenhagen and Washington enjoyed longstanding military cooperation and shared NATO membership.
Both countries had been lulled into complacency in the Arctic, he said, but the “status quo” was coming to an end.
“The fact is that we have all been harvesting the peace dividend,” he said. “We all acted on the assumption that the Arctic was and should be a low-tension area. But that time is over.”
