Initial talks between Denmark, the U.S. and Greenland over the Arctic island’s fate “went well” but the dispute is not over, the Danish foreign minister said Thursday.   Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt met with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on Jan. 14 and agreed to establish a “working group” to discuss Greenland and Arctic security amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands to take over the self-ruling Danish territory. “After that there was a huge derailment,” Rasmussen said, apparently referring to Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on several European countries unless they agreed to hand over Greenland — a threat that he eventually walked back after saying he’d reached a “framework” toward a deal with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, the details of which have not been made public. “Things escalated, but now we are back on track,” Rasmussen told reporters at the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels. The first meeting of the working group on Wednesday “went well and took place in a constructive atmosphere and tone.” “I’m a little more optimistic today than I was a week ago,” he added, but warned the dispute has not been “resolved” and more talks are planned. Trump’s threats to seize Greenland roiled Europe and fractured transatlantic relations, leading to calls from leaders for the EU to become more unified and independent to ensure its own security. France and Germany went so far as to call for the EU to explore deploying its “trade bazooka,” the Anti-Coercion Instrument, before Trump backed down. Rasmussen credited Trump’s climbdown from launching a trade war to a “very strong European signal of solidarity” over Greenland. “It has become clear that the price for going down that path has been too high,” he said.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has one person to thank for rescuing her from a looming political abyss: U.S. President Donald Trump. Frederiksen’s party has seen a dramatic surge in poll ratings through January — just months after awful results in last year’s local elections — as it launched a vehement defense of Denmark’s sovereignty against Trump’s aggressive threats to annex Greenland. “After a long time, they have finally drawn a clear line instead of appearing submissive,” said Per Clausen, a left-wing Danish MEP from the opposition Enhedslisten party, who credited the change in approach with driving a leap in voter support. The phenomenon is not unique to Denmark. In elections from Canada to Australia, standing up to Trump has become electoral rocket fuel, as leaders who frame themselves as defenders of national sovereignty and liberal democracy are being rewarded by voters eager for pushback against the U.S. president. Frederiksen’s center-left party — which governs in a coalition with the center-right Moderates and Venstre parties — netted 22.7 percent of the vote and 41 parliament seats in a new poll by Megafon, a reputable Danish consultancy, conducted from Jan. 20 to 22 among 1,012 Danes. That’s a sharp upswing from the last poll by Megafon in early December, which showed Frederiksen’s party winning just 32 seats. The Social Democrats currently hold 50 seats out of 179, and the latest polls show that it would still be the largest party in parliament with 41 seats, putting them back in pole position to lead coalition talks, but leaving them dependent on partners to maintain power. The uptick in support is even more notable given that the Social Democrats suffered a terrible result in municipal elections in November, which saw Frederiksen’s party lose Copenhagen, a symbolically important seat, for the first time in 100 years. The Moderates, led by Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, nearly tripled its vote share in the poll from 2.2 percent to 6.4 percent, equal to about 12 seats. Another poll published Monday by the research institute Voxmeter for Danish news agency Ritzau showed support for Frederiksen’s Cabinet at 40.9 percent, the highest in two years. If an election were held now, the coalition would be forecast to win 73 seats. That would still leave them 17 seats short of the 90 needed for a majority and needing to negotiate with other parties — but is far from what just months ago looked like an imminent wipeout. RALLY AROUND THE FLAG Since then, the world — and Danish politics — has changed dramatically. Trump said in early January that he would seize Greenland, a self-ruling Danish territory in the Arctic, by any means necessary, an oft-repeated threat that took on new menace after the American capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Frederiksen, who has been in power since 2019, has mounted a spirited diplomatic defense of the Arctic island, successfully repelling Trump’s advances for now. And, according to the polls, Danes have rallied around her. Standing up to Trump has become electoral rocket fuel, as leaders who frame themselves as defenders of national sovereignty and liberal democracy are being rewarded by voters. | Mads Claus Rasmussen/EPA “There isn’t really another explanation for it,” said Anne Rasmussen, a political science professor at King’s College London and the University of Copenhagen, referring to the surge in support. “It’s first and foremost Greenland.” Rasmussen said the last time Denmark experienced such a wave of solidarity with its government was during the Covid pandemic, adding that national crises tend to favor incumbents. “I do think many Danes are currently moving towards the Social Democrats because the party is delivering on its core priorities … while also demonstrating strong leadership when even the most powerful man in the world challenges [Danish] sovereignty,” said Danish MEP Christel Schaldemose, who hails from Frederiksen’s Social Democrats party. Frederiksen’s government also reached an agreement this week with left-wing parties to hand out €600 million in tax-free food vouchers to more than 2 million people hit by rising food prices. TICK TOCK The question now is whether Frederiksen will call an election anytime soon to capitalize on her political gains. Under Danish electoral law, the vote must be held before Nov. 1. Frederiksen has gambled with an early election before, holding a snap vote in 2022 amid falling support, which saw her snag victory. “It might look like a little bit too instrumental to do it [call an election] in the middle of the biggest foreign policy crisis for Denmark and the world order … but it’s probably very likely that it will come before the summer,” Rasmussen said. “She will still wait a little bit, but I don’t think she will wait that long.” Frederiksen cut an influential figure in Brussels, especially during Denmark’s presidency of the Council of the EU in 2025, but had faltered domestically thanks to missteps ranging from her decision to cull Denmark’s entire population of 17 million minks to prevent the spread of Covid-19, to the dubious jailing of a former intelligence chief, providing an electoral opportunity for the opposition. The leader of Denmark’s right-wing Danish People’s Party, Morten Messerschmidt, told POLITICO that he would welcome earlier elections, calling them “a valuable opportunity” for the country to form a new government. Frederiksen, whose approval rating plummeted from 79 percent in 2020 to 34 percent in a December YouGov poll, rejected speculation that she would resign following the disastrous local elections in November. “They really had a bad election,” Rasmussen said, but added the government has since moved to address voters’ concerns on the cost of living with the food voucher scheme. That’s important because Frederiksen’s Greenland boost in the polls won’t last forever. “I don’t think it’s just going to sort of disappear overnight, but you can imagine that as some of the national issues again become more prominent on the agenda, people are going to base their judgments more on them when they think about who to vote for,” Rasmussen said. Frederiksen, who has been in power since 2019, has mounted a spirited diplomatic defense of the Arctic island, successfully repelling Trump’s advances for now. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images Rune Stubager, a professor of political science at the University of Aarhus, agreed that the Greenland crisis had caused “kind of a rallying effect,” but added “once the pressure subsides, I would, however, expect the government to drop again as attention would then turn to domestic issues.” Stine Bosse, a Danish MEP and member of the Moderates, said Frederiksen and the government’s handling of transatlantic tensions over Greenland would stand them in good stead. “This is probably the most difficult foreign policy situation Denmark has faced in many years, and the government has handled it in the best possible way,” said Bosse. “They have kept a cool head, a warm heart, and demonstrated a high level of professionalism.”

PARIS — Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen warned that democratic values and territorial integrity will guide his country’s talks with the United States over any future deal about the Arctic island. “We have some red lines we cannot cross but, from a Greenlandic perspective, we will try to sort out some sort of agreement,” he said alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Paris. “We have been working with the U.S. for many years now.” Tensions between Europe and the U.S. have cooled after President Donald Trump appeared to back down on his threats to take over the self-ruling Danish territory. Instead, he said he agreed on a framework to reach an agreement with Greenland during talks last week with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Switzerland. “Denmark is a sovereign state and it is one of the most basic democratic rules and values that territorial integrity has to be valued,” Frederiksen said during a conference at the Sciences Po Institute in Paris. “And next to that, don’t threaten an ally.” Frederiksen and Nielsen are in Paris for a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron after they held talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday. Nielsen painted a stark picture of the Greenlandic perspective as talks with the U.S. unfold. “We are under pressure, serious pressure … as Greenland leaders, we have to deal with people who are afraid and scared,” he said. “Imagine you are living in peace, you are a loyal partner, loyal to the alliance … and then some of your partners talk about taking, acquiring, and don’t rule out taking weapons,” he added. Frederiksen also warned that Europeans need to look beyond Greenland and consider the bigger picture of Washington’s changing relationship with the continent.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen welcomed talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and NATO chief Mark Rutte that led to the “framework for a future deal” on Greenland — but she stressed that the island’s sovereignty was not negotiable. “NATO is fully aware of the Kingdom of Denmark’s position. We can negotiate about everything politically — security, investments, the economy. But we cannot negotiate about our sovereignty,” Frederiksen said in a statement published Thursday morning. “I have been informed that this has not been the case either. And, of course, only Denmark and Greenland themselves can make decisions on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland,” she added. “The Kingdom of Denmark continues to seek a constructive dialogue with allies on how we can strengthen security in the Arctic, including the United States’ Golden Dome, provided that this takes place with respect for our territorial integrity.” Frederiksen’s exhalation came as Trump sought to dial down weeks of incendiary rhetoric over Greenland, signaling openness to negotiations while retreating from threats of force or tariffs against European allies to grab the island. Frederiksen also said Arctic security was a matter for the entire NATO alliance and welcomed discussions between NATO leadership and Washington, signaling openness to deploying the Golden Dome missile defense system, “provided that this takes place with respect for our territorial integrity.” Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump said he had “tremendous respect” for the people of Greenland and Denmark but added that “every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend their own territory.” Later Wednesday, Trump said he and Rutte had formed a “framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland” and backed down from his previous tariff threats against EU countries who opposed him on the issue. Observers were relieved earlier Wednesday after Trump said he would not use “force” to obtain Greenland — but demanded “immediate negotiations” with relevant European countries.

DAVOS, Switzerland — California Governor Gavin Newsom predicted Wednesday that market shockwaves could force U.S. President Donald Trump to back down from his geopolitically shattering threats to seize Greenland from Denmark. Speaking exclusively to POLITICO in Davos ahead of Trump’s closely watched speech Wednesday, Newsom suggested that “what’s not in his teleprompter will be the most interesting. And that will be shaped by what he sees on Pravda — sorry, on Fox — on the flight over.” Newsom said he suspects that Trump will be mollifying in tone with the Europeans over Greenland, because of slumping stock markets. “The only thing I think that can move Trump, and hopefully he doesn’t double down on stupid today, are the markets,” Newsom said, pointing to Trump softening his position on global tariffs after last April’s “Liberation Day” announcement rattled markets. “Remember what happens on the markets impacts every single person he brings over on the plane — Howard Lutnick’s portfolio, Steve Witkoff’s and Trump’s own portfolio. That’s what matters for him,” Newsom said. Trump has spent the first half of January ratcheting up his threats to seize the massive Arctic island — a self-ruling Danish territory — which would stretch eight decades of the transatlantic relationship to breaking point. European leaders are scrambling to find a plan that would induce Trump to back down, after he announced last weekend he would impose tariffs on countries trying to block him from snagging Greenland. Newsom said he wasn’t in Davos to position himself as the resistance leader to Trump, although he is a widely discussed contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. “I’m here to express a different point of view. He’s a historic president. But he’s historically unpopular, and people need to understand that here,” Newsom said. “His policies are undeniably unpopular across the political spectrum in America. Even by his own standards, he’s more unpopular today than he was even in the first term.” ‘WAR WITH CALIFORNIA’ During his chat with POLITICO, conducted in the Davos Congress Centre, Newsom expanded on his rocky relationship with Trump, with whom he once had a positive relationship. “That’s what happens when he starts calling you names like we are in seventh grade, in my case ‘Newscum’. It doesn’t help,” the California governor said. “But he’s been at war with California,” he added. “We had a great relationship during COVID, which was interesting. No other Democratic governor could lay claim to that. But the federalization of the National Guard and his sending 700 active duty Marines to Los Angeles crossed the line.” Newsom said that their relationship started to deteriorate because of Trump’s refusal to sign the paperwork for disaster aid for “American people who happen to live in my state to cope with the wildfires a year ago. He hasn’t done a damn thing for LA.” The governor added that the Golden State has become “the center of all of Trump’s attention because of quantum computing and AI and also because many of his own personal relationships and those of his cabinet members and family members involve California.”

DAVOS, Switzerland — California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday called global leaders “pathetic” for failing to challenge U.S. President Donald Trump. “I can’t take this complicity of people rolling over. I should have brought a bunch of knee pads for all the world leaders. I mean handing out crowns, the Nobel prizes that are being given away. It’s just pathetic. And I hope people understand how pathetic they look on the world stage,” Newsom said, speaking to reporters in Davos. “Trump is a T-Rex. You mate with him or he devours you, one or the other, and you need to stand up to it,” he continued, telling Europeans to “stay tall and united.” Newsom, who is one of the highest-profile Trump critics in America, confirmed last fall he is thinking about running for president in 2028. The California governor would be a leading contender to secure the Democratic nomination. He was cajoling European leaders after Trump belligerently stepped up his threats to seize Greenland in recent days, annoucing that he will will impose 10 percent tariffs on eight countries that have opposed the sale of Greenland to the U.S.  Heads of government in Europe are scrambling to find a response that will cool the situation — as Trump ratchets up his own belligerent rhetoric. The U.S. president posted overnight that he’d spoken to NATO chief Mark Rutte, agreed to a meeting in Davos with key players on Greenland — then leaked a text message from French President Emmanuel Macron, shared a map of the Western Hemisphere showing Canada (and Venezuela) as American, and berated Britain for ceding a military base in the Indian Ocean. In another message Trump shared on Truth Social, NATO boss Mark Rutte sent him a text saying, Mr. President, dear Donald – what you accomplished in Syria today is incredible. I will use my media engagements in Davos to highlight your work there, in Gaza, and in Ukraine. I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland. Can’t wait to see you. Yours, Mark.” On Monday, Trump said that he was no longer interested “purely” in peace due to not winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize ended up going to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who last week gifted her medal to Trump — though the Nobel committee subsequently issued a statement that while the physical award may change hands, the actual honor itself is not transferable.  Newsom is known for sending knee-caps for politicians who he says have bowed down to Trump, and sells them on his website.

Days after Donald Trump cited the threat from Russia as a reason to annex Greenland, the U.S. president invited Vladimir Putin to join his Board of Peace. Whiplash, anyone? Not to the Russians. Over the past weeks, Moscow’s response to Trump’s Greenland gambit has been just as disorienting. Kremlin officials have alternated between feigned sympathy for the residents of the Arctic island and open enthusiasm for Trump’s efforts to bring it into the American embrace. The contradiction points to a deliberate strategy: exploiting the crisis to weaken Western unity while keeping Trump focused elsewhere. In the weeks since Trump captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and threatened to intervene in Iran, Russia appears to have set aside its other geopolitical ambitions, including in the Arctic, to keep Washington in its corner on Ukraine. Meanwhile, it seems to be hoping tensions over Greenland will crack NATO and drive further wedges between Kyiv’s most important allies.  “It would have been difficult to imagine something like this happening before,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a press conference on Tuesday, drily gloating over the diminishing “prospects of preserving NATO as a unified Western military-political bloc.”  The alarm over Greenland has already paid dividends for the Kremlin, pushing Ukraine off the agenda in Davos as European leaders scramble to the Alpine ski town to try to defuse the crisis. “Greenland [is the] ideal solution,” wrote Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, on his Telegram channel.  Tensions between Europe and the U.S. could serve as a stepping stone to the break-up of NATO. “Then the EU will be forced to stop its war against Russia,” he continued.  After years spent bashing the “collective West,” pro-Kremlin propagandists are suggesting the country can now sit back and watch their enemies stumble. “Our guiding principle is: Let them tear each other apart,” pundit Vladimir Kornilov said on a political talk show Friday, with evident relish. Lavrov took time during his press conference for a bit of trolling. Sergey Lavrov took time during his press conference for a bit of trolling. | Pool photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko via AFP/Getty Images Rejecting claims that Moscow covets Greenland, Russia’s top diplomat said the island matters to U.S. security in much the same way Crimea matters to Russia — referring to the Ukrainian peninsula Russia seized in 2014, precipitating its conflict with Kyiv. “Greenland is not an obvious part of Denmark, right?” he said. “It is a colonial conquest. The fact that its residents are now accustomed to living there and feel comfortable is another matter. But the problem of former colonies is becoming an increasingly serious matter.” In dismissing claims that it is a military threat to Denmark, Moscow has carefully avoided criticizing Trump. Instead, it has cast his move as “historic.” In his first remarks Monday on the unfolding crisis, Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov cited unnamed “experts” who, he said, believed Trump would “make history” by annexing Greenland. “Leaving aside whether this would be good or bad, it’s hard not to agree with these experts,” he said.  State media has noted that if the U.S. were to annex Greenland, it would become the second-largest country on Earth — after Russia.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned Washington to keep its hands off Greenland and said Europe’s response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats would be “unflinching.” In a wide-ranging speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, von der Leyen said the self-ruling Danish territory’s sovereignty is “non-negotiable,” despite Trump’s repeated promises to purchase or annex it. “Our response will be unflinching, united and proportional,” von der Leyen said, adding the EU would show “full solidarity” with Greenland and was planning a “massive” increase in European investments in the island. Trump vowed over the weekend to inflict punishing tariffs on six EU countries, the U.K. and Norway over their opposition to his Greenland grab. He said an additional 10 percent tariff would enter into force on Feb. 1 unless Europe hands over the Arctic island.  The EU is internally divided on how best to respond to the American president’s saber-rattling, with France requesting the EU deploy its Anti-Coercion Instrument, or trade bazooka, to cut off U.S. firms from the bloc’s single market, while other capitals have urged restraint and dialogue.  In a veiled rebuke to Trump, von der Leyen singled out “the people of the United States” as Europe’s friends, calling on Washington to respect the trade deal it struck with the EU last summer in Scotland, which set a tariff ceiling of 15 percent on most European exports.  “In politics as in business: a deal is a deal. And when friends shake hands, it must mean something,” she said, adding Trump’s proposed new tariffs were a “mistake.” And with Trump dramatically rewriting the transatlantic alliance, “Europe needs to adjust to the new security architecture and realities that we are now facing,” von der Leyen said, adding the “old order” is dead. Von der Leyen also used the speech to display the EU’s network of friends across the world, at a time when Washington is withdrawing from the multilateral order.  Adapting to the new order means forming a raft of new trade alliances, from the Mercosur bloc in South America, which last weekend finalized a trade deal with the EU to create a sprawling free-trade zone, to Mexico, Indonesia and India, she argued. Brussels and New Delhi still have “work to do,” von der Leyen conceded, just as the two sides are supposed to shake hands when she travels to India in the coming days.  “But we are on the cusp of a historic trade agreement,” she said, describing it as the “mother” of all trade deals. “The point is that the world has changed permanently,” von der Leyen said. “We need to change with it.”

LONDON — Nigel Farage warned that Donald Trump’s threats to capture Greenland represent the “biggest fracture” in the transatlantic relationship since the Suez crisis, as he clashed on air with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson. Farage, the leader of Britain’s poll-topping, right-wing populist Reform UK party, has long been seen as a key ally of the U.S. president in the United Kingdom. But he told Johnson, who appeared on Farage’s GB News show as part of a visit to the U.K., that Trump’s threats to seize control of Greenland and slap tariffs on allies who disagree with him risked shredding relations between the U.S. and fellow NATO members. “Friends can disagree in private, and that’s fine. That’s part of life, part of politics,” Farage told the senior Republican, who is set to address the British parliament Tuesday. “But to have a U.S. president threatening tariffs unless we agree that he can take over Greenland, by some means, without it seems even getting the consent of the people of Greenland … this is a very hostile act. There’s no other way I can put it.” Responding, Johnson acknowledged that Trump “has a certain manner in which he goes about doing things,” and accused the U.S. “far-left media” of taking the president “always literally and not seriously.” “I think what the president has in mind with Greenland is that he understands the strategic significance of it, the increasing significance,” Johnson argued. Farage said he had heard and agreed with Trump’s concerns about Arctic security, and praised the U.S. president for highlighting that “Europeans haven’t paid enough” toward the continent’s defense. But he warned “this is the biggest fracture in our relationship since Suez in 1956.” That crisis represented a watershed moment in U.S.-U.K. relations, with President Dwight Eisenhower exerting heavy pressure on the U.K. to withdraw an invading force from Egypt. “If we don’t get past this,” Farage said of the current rift with the U.S., “it genuinely would be a rupture.” Farage has long touted a friendship with Trump, and has positioned his Reform UK party as a populist challenger on the right of British politics. In recent days, however, he has come out against Trump’s vow to levy a 10 percent tariff on allies supportive of Greenland’s autonomy. “It’s wrong, it’s bad, it would be very, very hurtful to us,” Farage told reporters Monday — as he vowed to try and speak to Trump directly when the pair attend the World Economic Forum at Davos this week.

U.S. President Donald Trump posted overnight that he’d spoken to NATO chief Mark Rutte, agreed to a meeting in Davos with key players on Greenland — then leaked an apparent text message from French President Emmanuel Macron, shared a map of the Western Hemisphere showing Canada (and Venezuela) as American, and berated Britain for ceding a military base in the Indian Ocean. And breathe. “I had a very good telephone call with Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, concerning Greenland,” Trump wrote. “I agreed to a meeting of the various parties in Davos, Switzerland. As I expressed to everyone, very plainly, Greenland is imperative for National and World Security. There can be no going back — On that, everyone agrees!” Trump has stepped up his threats to seize Greenland in recent days, announcing he will impose 10 percent tariffs on eight European countries that have mobilized to try and block the U.S. president’s extraterritorial ambitions. The tariff announcement has triggered an ongoing scramble among European leaders to come up with a response to Trump. Macron, in a text message that Trump screenshotted on social media, purportedly wrote to the U.S. leader: “My friend, We are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran. I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland. “Let us try to build great things,” Macron added, as he tried to win over Trump. “i can set up a g7 meeting after Davos in Paris on thursday afternoon. I can invite the ukrainians, the danish, the syrians and the russians in the margins. let us have a dinner together in Paris together on thursday before you go back to the us. Emmanuel.” A French official close to Macron confirmed the message was authentic. In another indication of how the American president and his MAGA allies are stepping up chatter about pursuing supremacy over the entire Western Hemisphere, Trump then shared a fake map — featured in the background of a genuine photo from a European leaders’ dash to Washington in August to talk Ukraine — that showed Canada, Greenland and Venezuela all under the U.S. flag. To complete the blizzard of social media posting, Trump then turned his attention to Britain, which has agreed a deal to cede full sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. He hammered the U.K. for “planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.” Clea Caulcutt contributed to this report.