Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that US President Donald Trump remains “very serious” about annexing Greenland, despite recently toning down his rhetoric about using military force to take over the resource-rich Arctic territory.
Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to acquire the autonomous Danish territory, citing its strategic location and alleged threats from Russia and China – claims dismissed by Copenhagen, Moscow, and Beijing. Although he initially did not rule out using military force, last month he announced a framework deal with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Frederiksen argued the threat is far from over, describing the pressure on Greenland as “unacceptable.”
“Unfortunately, the US president remains very serious,” she said, adding that “the people of Greenland have never been threatened by anyone before.”
While Copenhagen is willing to work with Washington to allow an expanded military presence, Frederiksen stressed that “there are, of course, things that you cannot compromise on” – such as sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“We now have a working group. We will try to see if we can find a solution… we will do whatever we can, but of course, there are red lines that will not be crossed,” she said, following a 45-minute meeting on Friday with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Details of the talks have not been made public.
Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen echoed the concerns, calling it “outrageous” that Greenlanders are being threatened by a NATO member.
Frederiksen warned last month that the annexation threats could undermine “everything,” including the US-led military bloc. French President Emmanuel Macron also criticized Washington’s stance, calling the “Greenland moment” evidence that the Trump administration is “openly anti-European.”
Former US President Barack Obama has said he believes that aliens are “real” but dismissed longstanding conspiracy theories that the US is concealing proof of extraterrestrial life at a secretive military facility called Area 51.
Obama made the remarks on the No Lie podcast with Brian Tyler Cohen released on Saturday. Asked whether aliens “are real,” the ex-president replied in the affirmative, adding “I haven't seen them, and they’re not being kept in Area 51.”
“There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States,” he added.
When asked what question he most wanted answered upon becoming president, Obama joked that it was: “where are the aliens?”
Area 51 is a highly classified US Air Force facility at Groom Lake in southern Nevada. The CIA officially acknowledged the site’s existence in 2013, when declassified documents revealed it had been used since 1955 to test the U-2 spy plane and other experimental aircraft.
The facility’s secrecy sparked decades of speculation about extraterrestrial research, including theories that crashed alien spacecraft were stored there and that it was a venue for meetings with extraterrestrials. There have been a few UFO sightings in the area, but the CIA claimed they were test flights of the U-2 spy plane.
However, conspiracy theories have also been fueled by hundreds of alleged UFO sightings elsewhere. Pentagon officials told Congress in May 2022 that there were nearly 400 reports of unidentified aerial phenomena by military personnel, up from 144 tracked between 2004 and 2021. In 2024, the Pentagon stressed, however, that it had “no evidence to indicate extraterrestrial life has visited the planet.”
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was not a “believer” in extraterrestrial life, adding, though, that he had met with “serious people that say there’s some really strange things that they see flying around out there.”
