By Steven Erlanger and Jeanna Smialek
It was a contentious, aggressive telephone call, five days before the inauguration of President Donald Trump on Jan. 20.
Speaking to Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark, Trump insisted he wanted the United States to take over Greenland, the massive and autonomous Danish island that occupies a strategic part of the ocean as the ice caps melt and new shipping lanes open.
The tone and content of the icy exchange was described by two European officials who were briefed on the 45-minute call and requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. The United States has not publicly commented on the call.
Frederiksen made various suggestions for more cooperation on military and economic issues, but insisted that Greenland, which already hosts an important U.S. base, was not for sale, according to the European officials.
Since that Jan. 15 call, whose aggressive tenor was earlier reported by The Financial Times, Denmark has tried to calm the waters, urging its partners in the European Union not to inflame the situation until matters become more clear, the officials said. The issue of Greenland is not on the agenda for an EU foreign affairs council meeting in Brussels on Monday, for example.
If Trump decides to pressure Denmark with economic means, through tariffs, the European Union itself would be expected to respond as a whole with countertariffs, said Zaki Laïdi, a professor at Sciences Po and an adviser to the former EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.
“I was told that Trump is quite serious about Greenland, and it’s going to be a huge challenge for the EU, if we don’t react strongly to it,” Laïdi said. He confirmed that “the Danes are saying, ‘Keep it down,’ but they’re scared.”
That sense of foreboding was obvious in Davos, Switzerland, where European leaders gathered last week with corporate executives and academics for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. Rumors about Trump’s call with Frederiksen were rampant at the gathering, as was nervousness about what a second Trump administration will mean for Europe as a whole.
For now, the Danes are concentrating on dialogue. On Friday, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s foreign minister and prime minister during the first Trump administration, had a 20-minute telephone discussion with the United States’ new secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Afterward, Rasmussen said that the two countries had agreed to discuss “the Arctic region” and that the conversation, which included other issues like Ukraine, had a “good and constructive tone.”
The State Department, for its part, said that Rubio had “reaffirmed the strength of the relationship” between the two countries. The two men, the State Department said, “discussed the importance of deepening bilateral and regional cooperation on security and defense, economic and trade matters, and ending the war in Ukraine.”
Officially, Denmark has said little about the phone call between Trump and Frederiksen. A statement from Frederiksen’s office immediately afterward made no mention of sharp disagreements but emphasized trade with the United States and talked of cooperation, dialogue and enhanced investment in security by Denmark.
In the statement, Frederiksen cited the chair of the Greenlandic parliament, Mute Egede, saying that Greenland is not for sale and argued that “it is up to Greenland itself to make a decision on independence.”
The officials who were briefed on the phone call and Laïdi suggested that Trump’s intentions were unclear, and that he might move to encourage Greenlanders to vote for independence in a referendum and then to bind themselves to the United States. Or he may want to pressure Denmark and the European Union with tariffs. Brussels is working with the Danes to strike the right tone and to figure out what Trump really wants, one official said.
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