The Danish Foreign Minister visits the White House for important talks on Greenland

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løke Rasmussen will visit the White House on Wednesday in an effort to calm tensions over Greenland, which US President Donald Trump has vowed to seize from an old ally.

Hours before the scheduled start of the meeting, Danish Defense Minister Truls Lund Poulsen said that his country would strengthen its military presence in Greenland and would continue dialogue with its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), after the United States criticized it under the pretext of neglecting to defend the autonomous Arctic region.

“We will continue to strengthen our military presence in Greenland, but we will also focus more within NATO on more maneuvers and increasing the alliance’s presence in the Arctic,” Poulsen wrote in a statement to AFP.

Since the start of his second term in the White House almost a year ago, Trump has been hinting at his desire to take over the vast, strategically important and sparsely populated island, and his statements in this regard have become bolder since he ordered, on January 3, an attack in Venezuela that led to the removal of its president and resulted in deaths.

The Danish Foreign Minister sought to hold talks with his American counterpart, Marco Rubio. The meeting will be held at the White House after Vice President Jay DeVance requested to join it.

When requesting the meeting, Lucke said he hoped to dispel “some misunderstandings.” But it is not yet clear whether the Trump administration sees this that way and whether it is prepared to back down.

When Trump was asked on Tuesday about the statement by the Prime Minister of Greenland that the island preferred to remain a territory of Denmark, he said, “That’s their problem.”
“I don’t know anything about him, but it will be a big problem for him,” he added.

Trump said Friday that he wants Greenland “whether they like it or not” and “we will do it one way or another.”

Trump says the United States needs Greenland for fear that Russia or China will control it.