Greenland 'ready to negotiate' better partnership, PM says

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen admitted that Europe has invested "too little in the Arctic and the security of the Arctic" after a meeting with EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

In the next EU budget from 2028, the Commission also wants to double financial support for Greenland, she said. 

She said her team "will soon put forward a comprehensive package of investments," in Greenland without elaborating what these could be. 

Here's what to know about the emergency meeting.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said there was an opportunity for "proper negotiations" with the US, following President Donald Trump's talks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

Rasmussen said Wednesday's meeting between Trump and Rutte had "the positive outcome that a door has now been opened for us to once again have a proper negotiation between the Kingdom — meaning Denmark and Greenland — on one side and the United States on the other."

"We share the objectives but not necessarily the methods" with the US on security in the Arctic, said Lokke Rasmussen. "Now there is an opportunity for us to make things fit together." 

Despite announcing a "framework" for a deal on Wednesday, no details of what Trump and Rutte discussed have been made public. 

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed relief over US President Donald Trump's surprise announcement on Wednesday not to impose additional tariffs on some European countries because of a transatlantic disagreement over Greenland.

"I am very grateful that President Trump has refrained from his original plans to take over Greenland. And I am also grateful that he has refrained from imposing additional tariffs on February 1," Merz said.

The German chancellor was in Brussels for a meeting that had been organized to develop a joint response to the tariffs Trump had threatened.

Merz said member countries "will have to strengthen the resilience and robustness of the European Union."

"The European Union, the European part of NATO, must be able to defend itself," Merz said, adding that despite progress, "we are still a long way from achieving everything we need to achieve."

Denmark has requested that the NATO military alliance be more present in the Arctic, Danish Prime ⁠Minister ‍Mette Frederiksen said on Thursday ahead of an EU summit meeting in Brussels. 

"We ⁠need a permanent presence from NATO in the ‍Arctic region, including around Greenland," ​Frederiksen ​told reporters. "It's clear for everybody that we are a sovereign state ‍and we cannot negotiate about that. But, of ​course, we can discuss with the US how we ⁠can ​strengthen our common cooperation on security in ‌the ‌Arctic region." 
 

Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen has said he's not privy with the "details" of any potential deal on Greenland being discussed by Donald Trump and NATO and European powers in Davos or elsewhere.

He said the Danish autonomous territory wanted a "peaceful dialogue" with the United States and that it was "ready to negotiate a better partnership" with the US, including on issues like minerals access, but also said that violation of its sovereignty or right to self-determination was a red line. 

"We have some red lines... We have to respect our territorial integrity. We have to respect international law, sovereignty," he told a press conference. 

He said he was "glad" about Trump's claim on Wednesday that he was not entertaining the use of force to control Greenland and later that a "deal" had been struck. 

The US president and others have been coy on the details of this deal, though he said at a Fox News event in Davos "essentially it's total access. There's no end, there's no time limit." 

"We will have everything we want. We're getting everything we want at no cost," Trump said. 

How this might differ from the existing, longstanding, and wide-reaching US rights to military access and construction in Greenland — a footprint it has drastically downsized of its own volition in recent decades — is entirely unclear. 

Greenland is becoming a geopolitical hot spot: NATO is showing its presence, the US is asserting itself while Denmark organizes aid. Amid the global power struggle, the Inuit fear their identity may be lost. 

After his one-on-one meeting with US President Donald Trump in Davos on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spared no criticism of his fellow European leaders in a World Economic Forum speech, chiding them for timidity in the face of fundamental threats to democracy.

Zelenskyy tore into the bloc over what he called its slow and overly cautious approach to confronting the very real threat on its doorstep as war rages into its fourth year on the continent and European leaders appear to be in disarray over how to deal with Trump's approach to alliances and geopolitics.

Among a number of core issues, Zelenskyy blasted the European response to Trump's threats of taking Greenland by force, asking, "if you send 40 soldiers to Greenland, what message does it send? Those soldiers won't protect anything." 

After warning that Europe needs a united fighting force and that NATO only exists as such due to the "belief that the US will act," Zelenskyy said, "when you refuse to help people fighting for democracy, consequences return."

US President Donald Trump told US media that the details of his bid to gain full access to  Greenland were being worked out and said he was seeking "total access" to the Danish territory.

"It's really being negotiated now, ‌the details of it. But essentially, it's total access. ‌It's — there's ⁠no end, there's no time limit," Trump told the Fox Business Network from the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

Trump acknowledged the impact of his quest for Greenland on global markets and said ⁠he did not plan to pay to acquire it.

"I noticed the stock market went up very substantially ‍after we announced it," Trump told Fox's "Mornings with Maria" program. He did not mention the dramatic market drops when he would not rule out using force to control the Arctic island that is a Danish territory. 

On Wednesday, Trump stepped back from a tariff threat on eight European countries and ruled out the use of force to ⁠seize Greenland.

European leaders will gather for an emergency EU summit to discuss transatlantic ties on Thursday.

The Brussels meeting was scheduled earlier this week when US President Donald Trump careened from one threat to another against allies over his desire to "possess" the semiautonomous Danish territory of Greenland. 

Though perhaps slightly less urgent than before Trump appeared to climb down from his maximalist position on the subject Wednesday evening during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the Brussels meeting will see EU leaders grapple with the fundamental nature of the bloc's decades-old partnership with Washington. 

Trump had previously threatened additional 10% tariffs on allies as well as the use of military force to take Greenland if NATO partners refused to acquiesce to his plan to snatch the island territory from NATO ally Denmark.

Though EU leaders were relieved by Trump's U-turn on the Greenland tariff threat, they are less than confident they can count on him to keep his word.

"Nothing ​much changed," said an EU diplomat quoted by Reuters news agency. "We still need to see details of the Greenland deal. We are a bit fed up with all the bullying. And we need to act on a few things: more resiliency, unity, get our things together on internal market, competitiveness. And no more accepting tariff bullying."

European Council President Antonio Costa, who will chair Thursday's summit, said the US under Trump has threatened EU security, principles and prosperity, noting, "All these three dimensions are being tested."

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters in Switzerland that a new framework agreement put forth by the US would require members of the alliance to quickly ramp up Arctic security efforts.

"We will come together in NATO with our senior commanders to work out what is necessary," said Rutte. "I have no doubt ‍we can do this quite fast," he added. "Certainly I would hope for 2026, I ​hope ​even early in 2026."

Rutte also attempted to allay fears that he himself had voiced over Greenland taking focus off of combatting the Russian invasion of Ukraine on NATO's eastern flank. The Dutch politician said the intensified Arctic defense effort would in no way rob Kyiv of NATO resources.  

Lastly, Rutte also noted that mineral exploitation on Greenland had not discussed during his Wednesday meeting with the US president in Davos. 

Negotiations on the issue would continue between the US, Denmark and Greenland said Rutte.

As sources familiar with talks between US President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte say Denmark and the US are set to renegotiate a 1951 Greenland defense agreement, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen says the issue of Arctic security concerns the whole of NATO.

In a statement released Thursday, Frederiksen voiced approval for discussions on the issue, adding that she remains in close contact with Rutte.

The prime minister said she is interested in continued dialogue on all aspects of Arctic security — including the so-called "Golden Dome" missile defense system — as long as this is "done with respect for our territorial integrity." 

Frederiksen's statement confirmed that Denmark is willing to negotiate on security, investment and economic issues, but she added, "we cannot negotiate on our sovereignty" while noting that only Denmark and Greenland can make decisions on the kingdom and territory. 

US President Trump says a "framework deal" for the future of Greenland is in place, and that he's dropping his tariff threats against Europe.

More from Brandon Bohrn, political analyst at the Bertelsmann Foundation.

Danish consumers have found a new way to make their displeasure over US designs on Greenland heard. Technically it is an old way — a boycott — supported by new technology — namely cellphone apps. 

Increasingly, Danes have been downloading apps such as UdenUSA (Without USA) — which is currently the most downloaded app at Apple's Denmark App Store — and using them at the supermarket to avoid US-made goods.

UdenUSA's developers say the idea came last year after Trump's reelection and his return to the idea of the US taking semi-autonomous Greenland away from Denmark. 

With Facebook groups dedicated to the issue attracting hundreds of thousands of members, Jonas Pipper and Malthe Hensberg say consumers were having difficulty identifying US-made products so they decided to create an app that would help them do so as well as suggesting European-made alternatives.

Supermarkets themselves have also taken to identifying EU-made products for consumers. The situation is not unlike boycotts of US-made products in other countries, such as Canada, after Trump began harassing allies with high tariffs and/or open threats to their sovereignty.   

Though the Danish boycott will likely be insignificant in terms of dollar amounts — few US products make their way into Denmark's relatively small economy — the boycott gives citizens an opportunity to make their voices heard on the Greenland machinations of their US ally

In his speech at the World Economic Forum, US President Donald Trump again returned to his plans for Greenland, saying Denmark would not be able to secure the island.

DW's Teri Schultz looks in more detail at his speech.

In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Donald Trump announced that a framework deal for the future of Greenland had been reached.

For weeks, he had insisted on acquiring the Danish Arctic island for the US.