Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have set in motion a plan to curb the Trump administration’s threats against a key NATO ally.
In the Senate, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Lisa Murkowski have introduced NATO Unity Protection Act, which would prevent any congressional funds from being used to take over the territory of a fellow NATO member.
A complementary bill has also been introduced in the US House of Representatives by a bipartisan group of 34 lawmakers headed by Democratic Rep. Bill Keating. Republican Don Bacon is the only original GOP co-sponsor of the bill.
Greenland, being an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, would be subject to protection if the bill were to pass Congress.
Murkowski noted that the ‘mere notion that America would use our vast resources against our allies is deeply troubling and must be wholly rejected by Congress in statute.’
Shaheen also noted in a statement that her ‘bill sends a clear message that recent rhetoric around Greenland deeply undermines America’s own national security interests and faces bipartisan opposition in Congress.’
European leaders in Brussels however, are scrambling for a way to give Trump a win on the issue of Greenland without a complete US takeover.
An EU diplomat told POLITICO that ‘if you can smartly repackage Arctic security, blend in critical minerals, put a big bow on top, there’s a chance’ of getting agreement from President Donald Trump to cement a deal.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R) arrives at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus ahead of a scheduled meeting with US Vice President JD Vance, Danish Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt in Washington, DC, on January 14, 2026
Protesters attend a march to the US consulate during a demonstration, under the slogan ‘Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people’, in Nuuk, Greenland, on March 15, 2025
The Danish foreign minister is meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday, and a bipartisan delegation of Congressional leaders is slated to head to Copenhagen to meet with Danish and Greenlandic leaders there.
Danish ambassador Jesper Møller Sørensen and the Head of Greenlandic Representation in the US Jacob Isbosethsen met a dozen lawmakers from both parties in the first week of January.
After a meeting with Republican Senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, Isbosethsen told reporters that ‘Greenland is not for sale.’
Isbosethsen also shared that ‘Greenland is a very proud people, it is a very, very proud country’ that is ‘very proud to contribute to the Western Alliance and to be a NATO ally and partner together with our friends from Denmark and the United States.’
President Donald Trump, however seemed insistent on seeing Greenland ‘in the hands if the United States’, adding that anything less than that was ‘unacceptable’ in a post to his Truth Social site Wednesday morning.
Greenland’s diplomatic representation in the US posted on X that the ‘last time a poll was done only 6% of Greenlanders/kalaallit were in favour of becoming a part of the US’ citing a survey from January of last year.
Trump’s own Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted on X a map of America’s ‘new interior’ as a response to the president’s statement, which illustrated new territories ranging from Anchorage, Alaska to Washington, DC to Nuuk, Greenland’s capital.
