Greenland's prime minister said the Arctic island's population and its authorities need to start preparing for a possible military invasion, even as it remains an unlikely scenario, as President Donald Trump continues to threaten taking over the territory.
“It's not likely there will be a military conflict, but it can't be ruled out,” Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said at a press conference in capital Nuuk on Tuesday.
Greenland's government will form a task force consisting of representatives of all relevant local authorities to help people prepare for any disruptions to daily life, Nielsen said. The government is working on distributing new guidelines to the population, including a recommendation to have enough food for five days stored in their homes.
Trump has said he needs to own Greenland for security reasons and had earlier on Tuesday posted an AI-generated image of himself planting a US flag on the island. Greenland, with a population of 57,000, is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but has its own government overseeing most aspects of life bar defense and foreign policy. Denmark has in recent days deployed more troops in Greenland to boost Arctic defense.
Greenland is under “a lot of pressure” and “we need to be ready for all scenarios,” Mute B. Egede, the island's minister of finance and former leader, said at the same news conference.
Meanwhile, Canada's military has modeled how it would respond to an American invasion after Trump publicly talked about the country as a potential 51st state, according to a report in the Globe and Mail, which cited unidentified officials who stressed they consider a US invasion to be highly unlikely.
In a move to shore up security of the territory, Denmark and seven other NATO countries last week deployed a handful of officers on the island as part of the Operation Arctic Endurance Denmark's Joint Arctic Command will now expand the military exercises to potentially run year-round, a Greenlandic newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The US president on Saturday threatened to impose new tariffs from Feb. 1 on the eight North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies that are sending military personnel, escalating tensions between Washington and Europe. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday warned Europe would have to respond if the tariffs are implemented and that there could be “major consequences” on both sides of the Atlantic.
“If a trade war is launched against us, which I cannot recommend, then we must of course respond. We would be forced to do so,” she said during a question and answer session in the Danish parliament. “I hope we do not get to that point. I hope that we succeed in convincing the Americans that this is not the path we should take.”
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