Denmark's prime minister has urged US President Donald Trump to stop threatening to seize Greenland as his raid on Venezuela alarmed Copenhagen about his military ambitions. Mette Frederiksen responded to Trump's renewed claim on Sunday that the United States needs the Kingdom of Denmark's semi-autonomous territory of Greenland for defense.
"I must say this very directly to the United States," Frederiksen said in a statement. "The United States has no right to annex any of the three components of the Kingdom of Denmark."
Frederiksen emphasized that the Kingdom of Denmark, including Greenland, is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and is therefore protected by the alliance's collective defense system. She also noted that a long-standing defense agreement already gives the United States "extensive access to Greenland."
"Of course we need Greenland, absolutely," Trump told The Atlantic in an interview on Sunday. "We need it for defense."
Late Saturday, Katie Miller, the wife of Trump's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, posted on X that Greenland was covered in American flags with a single caption: "Soon."