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Denmark has summoned the top US diplomat in the country over reports that American citizens with alleged links to President Donald Trump have been conducting covert influence operations in Greenland.
Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark’s foreign minister, said on Wednesday that there were “foreign actors” attempting to influence the future of Greenland and that all such efforts were “unacceptable”.
He has summoned Mark Stroh, the chargé d’affaires at the US embassy in Copenhagen and its most senior diplomat in Denmark at present, for a meeting at the foreign ministry.
Denmark has been shaken by Trump’s repeated suggestions that the US wants to take control of the vast Arctic island — a semi-autonomous part of the kingdom of Denmark — from Copenhagen, and his refusal to rule out using force to do so.
The Scandinavian country had already summoned the top US diplomat in May, following a report in the Wall Street Journal that a classified message was sent to American intelligence agencies urging them to identify people in Greenland and Denmark who support Trump’s ambition to take over the island.
The latest report by DR, the Danish public broadcaster, said Danish authorities were aware of at least three US citizens with alleged links to the Trump administration gathering information in Greenland and conducting influence operations.
Rasmussen said in television interviews that he was “not surprised” by the report. But he added: “It’s important that we gain some insight into this so that our people — in both Greenland and Denmark — know what it is that we risk being up against.”
Denmark’s security and intelligence service (PET) said on Wednesday that its assessment was that “Greenland, especially in the current situation, is the target of influence campaigns of various kinds. PET expects that such campaigns have the purpose of creating a split in the relationship between Denmark and Greenland.”
Some senior Danish officials sought to downplay the significance of summoning Stroh, saying that the three US citizens appeared to act in an amateur way and there was no link established to US intelligence.
But Danish politicians reacted with dismay. “This means the whole misery over Greenland is not over,” former foreign minister Martin Lidegaard told the TV channel TV2.
He added: “This is putting a heavy strain on our relationship with the US — and Americans should know that too.”
Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic member of Denmark’s parliament, said: “It is beyond a joke that they try to infiltrate Greenland’s society in this way. It is Greenland itself who must decide what we want and what future we want.”
The allegations come just days after the Trump administration caused pain to Danish business by issuing a stop-work order on an almost complete offshore wind farm co-owned by Ørsted.
That came on the same day that Rasmussen and Denmark’s ambassador to the US signed a partnership with California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, the self-styled leader of the resistance to Trump. Danish officials deny there is a connection between the two events.
The US embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The US is currently without an ambassador in Copenhagen despite Trump naming Ken Howery, who is close to Elon Musk, in December.
In a separate move, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Wednesday apologised to the thousands of Greenlandic women who over decades were forcibly fitted with contraceptive coils.
She acknowledged that the case had caused “anger and sorrow” in Greenland as well as hurting perceptions of Denmark. “We cannot change what has happened. But we can take responsibility. Therefore, on behalf of Denmark, I would like to say: sorry.”
Many Greenlanders use this issue to express why they want to gain independence from Denmark, but surveys suggest the 57,000 on the Arctic island are reluctant to do so imminently for fear of losing out economically.
