New opinion poll finds seven in 10 US adults disapprove of President Donald Trump’s handling of Greenland issue.
Denmark’s prime minister and Greenland’s premier met with United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio and agreed that talks would be pursued on the running of Greenland, the semi-autonomous Danish territory that President Donald Trump has threatened to take over.
Rubio held a 15-minute meeting with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Premier Jens-Frederik Nielsen on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Friday.
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Greenland’s leader Nielsen said in a post on social media that during the meeting with Rubio, “it was emphasised that the conversations being made are the right way forward and the interests of Greenland were once again clearly highlighted”.
Prime Minister Frederiksen said on X after the meeting: “Constructive talk with Secretary of State Marco Rubio together with Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Chairman of Naalakkersuisut, at the Munich Security Conference.”
“Work will continue as agreed in the high-level working group,” she said.
The meeting between the Danish and Greenlandic leaders and the US state secretary comes amid severely strained ties between Europe and Washington, and NATO allies, amid President Trump’s repeated threats to take over Greenland and criticism of European nations as “decaying” and “weak”.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Trump said, “We’re negotiating right now for Greenland.”
“I think Greenland’s going to want us, but we get along very well with Europe. We’ll see how it all works out,” he said.
After months of bellicose language regarding the US’s necessity to acquire Greenland, Trump abruptly stepped back from his threats last month, saying that he had reached an understanding with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte that would give the US greater influence in the mineral-rich Arctic territory.
Late last month, the US, Denmark and Greenland also launched talks to find a diplomatic path out of the crisis.
Poll finds most US adults disapprove of Trump’s Greenland plan
The US administration has cited key national security concerns related to Russia and China to justify its demand to take control over Greenland and has accused Denmark, and Europe more broadly, of being unable to defend the strategic territory.
But, according to a new opinion poll conducted by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Trump’s push to seize control of Greenland has gone down badly with the US public and members of his own party.
The survey, conducted between February 5-8, found that about seven in 10 US adults disapprove of how Trump is handling the Greenland issue – a higher disapproval rating than the share of those who dislike how he is handling foreign policy generally.
Even among Republican supporters, about half disapprove of his attempt to turn Greenland into US territory, according to the poll.
Sweden said on Thursday that it would send fighter jets to patrol Greenland as part of a newly launched NATO mission in the Arctic aimed at placating Trump’s concerns over the threats posed by Moscow and Beijing.
The government said in a statement that Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets would patrol Greenland as part of the newly-launched NATO mission, Arctic Sentry.
“As a NATO ally, Sweden has a responsibility to contribute to the security of the entire territory of the Alliance. The Arctic region is becoming increasingly important from a strategic perspective,” Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said.
In a separate statement, the Swedish Armed Forces said the fighter jets would be based out of Iceland, where six aircraft have been stationed since early February as part of the rotating incident response force, NATO Air Policing.
Swedish special forces would also be sent to Greenland to take part in training exercises for a couple of weeks, the military said.