Rubio to Meet Danish Officials on U.S. Strategic Interests in Greenland
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told lawmakers that President Trump plans to buy Greenland rather than invade it.
The saga of President Donald Trump’s quest for Greenland continues with a new chapter.
Over the last few days, I noted that Trump has stressed that a more robust relationship with Greenland is a national security issue. Then, both Greenland and Denmark asked to fast-track a meeting with our very busy Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
It now appears Rubio is scheduled to meet with Danish officials next week.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he plans to meet with Danish officials next week after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over Greenland, the strategic Arctic island that is a self-governing territory of Denmark.
Since the capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump has revived his argument that the United States needs to control the world’s largest island to ensure its own security in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenland counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, had requested a meeting with Rubio, according to a statement posted Tuesday to Greenland’s government website. Previous requests for a meeting were not successful, the statement said.
During that meeting, Rubio may be submitting an offer to purchase the Arctic island.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told lawmakers that President Trump plans to buy Greenland rather than invade it, while Mr. Trump has asked aides to give him an updated plan for acquiring the territory, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
Mr. Rubio made his remarks in a briefing on Monday with lawmakers from the main armed services and foreign policy committees in both chambers of Congress. The same day, Mr. Trump told aides to deliver an updated plan.
The congressional briefing was focused on Venezuela, but lawmakers raised concerns about Mr. Trump’s intentions on Greenland given aggressive remarks this week by the American president and a top aide, Stephen Miller, two officials said.
Mr. Rubio did not go into detail on what he meant by buying Greenland. Mr. Trump spent decades in New York as a real estate developer, and one of his top diplomatic envoys, Steve Witkoff, comes from the same background. Mr. Trump has coveted Greenland since his first term.
When pressed on the issue of whether the U.S. is aiming to buy Greenland Secretary Marco Rubio tells CBS News’ @NikolenDC, "that has always been the president's intent from the very beginning. He said it very early on. I mean, this is not new.”
Rubio also said he is meeting with… pic.twitter.com/M3ADaHvyIx
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 7, 2026
Greenland’s officials will also be part of the meeting. Rubio’s remarks about purchasing the island were made during a classified briefing to Congress.
The remarks, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, were made in a classified briefing Monday evening on Capitol Hill, according to a person with knowledge of his comments who was granted anonymity because it was a private discussion.
On Wednesday, Rubio told reporters that Trump has been talking about acquiring Greenland since his first term.
“That’s always been the president’s intent from the very beginning,” Rubio said. “He’s not the first US president that has examined or looked at how we could acquire Greenland.”
Interestingly, in 1940, Democratic icon Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to bring Greenland under U.S. protection and, in 1941, established a de facto protectorate, explicitly justified in terms of the Monroe Doctrine and Western Hemisphere defense.
During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied continental Denmark, leaving the Kingdom’s other two territories, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, exposed to a possible German invasion. The United Kingdom quickly occupied the Faroe Islands and, along with Canada, made plans to occupy parts of Greenland, which would drag the otherwise neutral island into the war. The United States, which at that point had not yet entered the war, rejected these plans and instead made Greenland a de facto protectorate and established formal diplomatic relations with the opening of a consulate.
The United States recognized that Greenland was strategically essential in that much of Europe’s weather patterns originated in the Arctic, so a meteorological station on the island would be a boon for any country fighting a war there. Furthermore, the mine at Ivittuut on the island’s southwestern shore provided the rare mineral cryolite, which was useful in the mass production of aluminum. Therefore, it was critical for the United States that Greenland was kept safe and in friendly hands in a time of all-out war in Europe.
In 1940 FDR took possession of Greenland under the Monroe Doctrine. pic.twitter.com/isSjOKVz0S
— Len Corsetti (@LenCorsetti) January 6, 2026
It will be interesting to see how the next chapter in this saga turns out!
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This might be a perfect excuse to leave NATO. We take Greenland and have all our personnel, weapons, and nuclear bombs leave Europe. We stop our involvement with Ukraine. We tell the EU, you are on your own. Have fun with the Russian bear. Don’t call us if it doesn’t work out. Three times is no longer the charm it used to be.
Oh and Grizzley we also take back our trident missiles from the UK if they are indeed rented out to them even though the UK is not part of the EU at present.
I was just about to bring that up.
Indeed. Eventually, the Mooslims will have control of the UK, so it’s better to remove our nukes now.
“The remarks, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, were made in a classified briefing Monday evening on Capitol Hill, according to a person with knowledge of his comments who was granted anonymity because it was a private discussion.”
And not at all because those disclosures to you made him a felon.
First thing I noticed. The Dems wonder why they were not brought into the Venezuela loop? There is really no such thing as a classified briefing.
I wish he had done all this with Greenland under the table
me 2, but not The Donald’s way.
OTOH, he may just be wiggling the left hand, so no one’s watching what the right’s doing.
Yes, but the screeching from the other room would have been deafening.
The new Trump Hotel & Resort in Nuuk is going to be killer.
I read this and thought “other two territories”?! What about Iceland?
But Iceland was already independent; its relationship with Denmark was mostly like that of Canada with the UK, except that at the Icelanders’ request Denmark handled their foreign affairs. So the statement is correct as given. But what happened with Iceland is that the UK occupied it to keep the Germans out. Then a year later the UK needed its troops elsewhere so the Icelanders asked the USA to take over.
Trump is taking the long view, better than being short-sighted.
Well, if the lefties’ slurp idol, FDR, took possession of Greenland, then lefties should really love it when Trump does it. Right? Right??
there were some people protesting trump the other day in greenland
we should have let 10 armed guys swoop in on them and say
look how easy we did this and you have no defense and the ussr etc wouldnt give second thoughts on wasting you and your families
we bought alaska and got the oil and the proximity so that we could see russia from our backyard 🙂
I’m suspecting Trump wants some strategic realignment and possibly an additional base or two in order to counter China/Russia ambitions. By starting with “We’ll buy it” and compromising to “Ok, how about two little bits here and over here” he gets exactly what he wants and promotes the US interest.
Acquisition by purchase is a going in position. Trump is always a negotiator. What he wants is basically defense rights. Other alternatives include protectorate status (perhaps jointly with Denmark), rights to bases and security operations, commonwealth status like Puerto Rico, a guarantee to Greenlanders that they would control their own domestic matters, or like the Oregon Territory joint sovereignty with Denmark but US control of defense and perhaps mineral rights. Greenlanders themselves, too few to be a state, could be offered local autonomy and a great economic deal. We do need to do something to assuage Denmark’s pride.
So how much is Greenland actually worth? You could give each of the 57k residents One Million US Dollars and I have to believe you would win that vote. So is it worth $57 Billion? If not, how about $500k for each totaling $28.5 Billion?