Troops from several European countries and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies have begun arriving in Greenland to participate in joint military exercises with Denmark, after high-level negotiations between Denmark and US officials ended in stalemate on Thursday.
The deployment was announced hours after Greenlandic and Danish officials cited a fundamental disagreement with US President Donald Trump’s stance.
The disagreement arose following US Vice President JD Vance’s statement that Washington’s position on acquiring Greenland remains unchanged.
France has sent about 15 soldiers, Germany a reconnaissance team of 13, while Norway and Sweden are also sending their troops to Greenland.
On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that “The first French military elements are already en route”, and “others will follow.” He described the initial two-day military mission (part of preparations for larger exercises such as Operation Arctic Endurance) as a way to show that EU / NATO troops can be quickly deployed if needed.
The German Defence Ministry said it was sending a reconnaissance team of 13 personnel to Greenland on Thursday and Friday.
Denmark announced its own plans to increase its military presence in Greenland after the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers met with White House representatives in Washington.
Following the meeting, the two ministers, while addressing the media, said, “We didn’t manage to change the American position,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters. “It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering Greenland.”
Similar views were expressed by the Greenlandic Foreign Minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, who called for cooperation with the US but said that this does not mean Greenland wants to be “owned by the United States”.
According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the troop deployment would “not impact the president’s decision-making process, nor does it impact his goal of the acquisition of Greenland at all.”
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that “we really need it [Greenland]”.
“If we don’t go in, Russia is going to go in, and China is going to go in. And there’s not a thing Denmark can do about it, but we can do everything about it,” Trump said.
Russia and China have slammed the US president’s assertion of linking their activity around the island to the current escalation.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova criticised the US administration’s constant narratives around seizing Greenland, saying, “First they came up with the idea that there were some aggressors, and then that they were ready to protect someone from these aggressors.”
The current situation, she said, “demonstrates with particular acuteness the inconsistency of the so-called ‘rules-based world order’ being built by the West.”
