met with Danish and Greenlandic lawmakers<\/a>, and with leaders including Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.<\/p>\nDelegation leader Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, thanked the group’s hosts for “225 years of being a good and trusted ally and partner” and said that “we had a strong and robust dialog about how we extend that into the future.”<\/p>\n
Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said after meeting lawmakers that the visit reflected a strong relationship over decades and “it is one that we need to nurture.” She told reporters that “Greenland needs to be viewed as our ally, not as an asset, and I think that’s what you’re hearing with this delegation”.<\/p>\n
The tone contrasted with that emanating from the White House. Trump has sought to justify his calls for a US takeover by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their own designs on Greenland, which holds vast untapped reserves of critical minerals. The White House hasn’t ruled out taking the territory by force.<\/p>\n
“We have heard so many lies, to be honest and so much exaggeration on the threats towards Greenland,” said Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic politician and member of the Danish parliament who took part in Friday’s meetings. “And mostly, I would say the threats that we’re seeing right now is from the US side.”<\/p>\n
Murkowski emphasised the role of Congress in spending and in conveying messages from constituents.<\/p>\n
“I think it is important to underscore that when you ask the American people whether or not they think it is a good idea for the United States to acquire Greenland, the vast majority, some 75%, will say, we do not think that that is a good idea,” she said.<\/p>\n
Along with Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, Murkowski has introduced bipartisan legislation that would prohibit the use of US Defence or State department funds to annex or take control of Greenland or the sovereign territory of any NATO member state without that ally’s consent or authorisation from the North Atlantic Council.<\/p>\n
![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/people-walk-on-a-beach-in-nuuk-greenland-EUQ267GBY5A47I3WSIENCMFGBY.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
People walk on a beach in Nuuk, Greenland. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Inuit council criticises White House statements<\/p>\n
The dispute is looming large in the lives of Greenlanders. Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said on Tuesday that “if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU.”<\/p>\n
The chair of the Nuuk, Greenland-based Inuit Circumpolar Council, which represents around 180,000 Inuit from Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia’s Chukotka region on international issues, said persistent statements from the White House that the US must own Greenland offer “a clear picture of how the US administration views the people of Greenland, how the US administration views Indigenous peoples, and peoples that are few in numbers.”<\/p>\n
Sara Olsvig told The Associated Press in Nuuk that the issue is “how one of the biggest powers in the world views other peoples that are less powerful than them. And that really is concerning.”<\/p>\n
Indigenous Inuit in Greenland do not want to be colonised again, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump suggested he may punish countries with tariffs if they don\u2019t back the US controlling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,64,40,38,41,39,66],"class_list":["post-237262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Members](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/members-of-the-danish-parliament-and-a-greenlandic-committee-CUITCQMWBRAN3IU5FGXW653RPA.jpg\")
<\/p>\n