A collected image for Greenland

COPENHAGEN, Jan 18, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - Denmark's foreign minister is to visit 
fellow NATO members Norway, the UK and Sweden to discuss the alliance's 
Arctic security strategy, his ministry announced Sunday.

Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen will visit Oslo on Sunday, travel to 
London on Monday and then to Stockholm on Thursday.

The diplomatic tour follows US President Donald Trump's threat to punish 
eight countries -- including the three Rasmussen is visiting -- with tariffs 
over their opposition to his plan to seize control of Greenland, an 
autonomous Danish territory.

Trump has accused Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the 
Netherlands and Finland of playing a "very dangerous game" after they sent a 
few dozen troops to the island as part of a military drill.

"In an unstable and unpredictable world, Denmark needs close friends and 
allies," Rasmussen stated in a press release.

"Our countries share the view that we all agree on the need to strengthen 
NATO's role in the Arctic, and I look forward to discussing how to achieve 
this," he said.

An extraordinary meeting of EU ambassadors has been called in Brussels for 
Sunday afternoon.

Denmark, "in cooperation with several European allies", recently joined a 
declaration on Greenland stating that the mineral-rich island is part of NATO 
and that its security is a "shared responsibility" of alliance members, the 
ministry statement added.

Since his return to the White House for a second term, Trump has made no 
secret of his desire to annex Greenland, defending the strategy as necessary 
for national security and to ward off supposed Russian and Chinese advances 
in the Arctic.