Denmark to increase military spending in Arctic by $2 billion – as Trump sets his sights on Greenland
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Denmark is set to increase military spending in its Arctic semiautonomous territory of Greenland by the equivalent of $2 billion following multiple aggressive statements by U.S. President Donald Trump about purchasing the territory.
Greenland, a massive island in the North Atlantic, has grown increasingly important in recent years as the Arctic ice melts, opening up new sea routes for commercial shipping.
Trump has called for U.S. control of Greenland since his first term in office. “Ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for national security reasons, the president has said, and he has refused to rule out using military or economic force to gain control of the territory.
In a statement Monday announcing the boost in spending, Greenland government member Vivian Motzfeldt said the territory is “facing a changing security landscape,” according to The New York Times.
Copenhagen is spending more on its North Atlantic territories of Greenland and the Faroe Islands as part of an agreement struck last year amid rising tensions in the Arctic between the U.S., Russia and China.
But the announcement of the growth in spending was likely pushed forward amid increased strains in the relationship between Copenhagen and Washington over control of Greenland, Niels Thulesen Dahl, a political analyst at Jyllands-Posten, a Danish daily, said, according to The Times.
The governments of Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands will buy three Arctic naval vessels to patrol its waters according to the agreement. In addition, they will also obtain two long-range drones and satellites for increased surveillance in the area, the official statement said.
The Danish government added that the new increased budget will also include funding for training young people in Greenland “to acquire important skills allowing them to take responsibility for preparedness.”
“We must face the fact that there are serious challenges regarding security and defense in the Arctic and North Atlantic,” Danish defense minister Troels Lund Poulsen said in the statement.
Just a day after the announcement was made, Danish Prime Minister Metter Frederiksen met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and the NATO secretary general, former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. The meetings with Western allies come after she spoke on the phone with Trump last week, with European officials describing the call as momentarily aggressive and antagonistic.
“The agreement has become slightly larger than it would otherwise have been,” Dahl added, according to The Times. He said that the announcement revealed that Greenland and Denmark have shared interests, rejecting the notion that the Greenlandic people would welcome American control of the territory.
“Much of the current discussion and tension feeds into a narrative that Denmark and Greenland have no shared interests and that Greenlanders simply want to move as quickly as possible away from Denmark and into the arms of the Americans,” Dahl added, noting that this is an inaccurate impression.
While Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. would like to buy Greenland, both the Danes and the local authorities in the Greenland capital of Nuuk have said that the territory is not for sale. Denmark ruled over it for more than 200 years and retains some control over its defense and foreign policy.
Earlier this month, before he was sworn in for his second term, Trump claimed, “People don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. But if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security.”
The idea of buying Greenland initially came to Trump from cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder, according to the 2022 book The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021 by Peter Baker of The New York Times and Susan Glasser of The New Yorker. Trump and Lauder have known each other since their college days.
The notion was subject to months of internal study and debate, much to the bemusement of cabinet secretaries and aides to the president.
“A friend of mine, a really, really experienced businessman, thinks we can get Greenland,” Trump told his National Security adviser, according to the book. “What do you think?”
