Greenland annexation threats

Case

Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has repeatedly said he wants the U.S. to acquire Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, citing competition with Russia and China for Arctic influence.

Documentation
Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out military force to seize Greenland. On NBC's Meet the Press he said 'I don't rule it out... I don't say I'm going to do it, but I don't rule out anything,' while separately saying he thinks 'we're not gonna ever get to that point.'
He also threatened a 25% import tax on goods from several European nations unless Denmark ceded the territory, escalating in early 2026 before he reversed course at the January 2026 Davos conference, pledging not to use force or tariffs to annex Greenland.
Greenland and Denmark have consistently refused. Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in March 2026: 'No more pressure. No more hints. No more fantasies about annexation.' NATO ally Denmark has said any U.S. attack to seize the territory would end the alliance.
NATO allies including Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, and the UK participated in a joint military exercise (Operation Arctic Endurance) explicitly intended as deterrence against a U.S. invasion. The largest protests in Greenland's history occurred in January 2026 under the slogan 'Greenland is not for sale.'
Trump renewed the annexation threat again in the wake of the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuela's Maduro (see the Venezuela entry in this document), which some observers read as demonstrating a template for similar action elsewhere.

Note
Trump has both raised and walked back the threat of force, which remains untested.

Sources
[1] Yahoo/NBC (https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-renews-threat-military-force-182648639.html)
[2] Al Jazeera (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/10/what-are-potential-hard-ways-trump-could-try-to-take-greenland)
[3] Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_hybrid_warfare_against_Greenland_during_the_second_Trump_administration)
[4] Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Arctic_Endurance)
[5] Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands_off_Greenland_protests)
[6] Time (https://time.com/7343110/trump-greenland-annex-threats-nielsen-responds/)

Connections

Related — Canada and Mexico: '51st state' rhetoric and the trade war
Both are territorial/annexation-adjacent rhetoric aimed at neighboring or allied states.