UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has delivered a blunt warning to President Donald Trump over renewed demands for the annexation of Greenland, telling the US leader to keep his “hands off” the territory.
With the US's capture of Venezuela's leader Nicolas Maduro still reverberating across Europe, there is growing nervousness over what the White House might do next. At the weekend the US removed Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro from the country and has taken him to New York, where he was due in court on Monday on charges of “narco-terrorism”.
The move, seen as the most assertive US intervention to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has sparked murmurs among allies of Mr Trump that the President should follow through on his idea of acquiring Greenland as a US territory.
It follows remarks from Mr Trump in which he said the US needed Greenland "from the standpoint of national security”.
Mr Starmer was publicly cautious in his response and said democracy and the rule of law remain essential. He added most Labour MPs share his view.
“We will always defend the international rule of law,” he said, and the US “will have to justify the action it has taken". However, he repeatedly declined to say if Washington had acted within international law.
Asked if he would tell Mr Trump to keep his “hands off Greenland”, Mr Starmer replied “yes”.
Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which is also a Nato member. Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s Prime Minister, said the US “has no right to annex any of the three nations in the Danish kingdom”, made up of Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
A move by America on Greenland would cost Washington its western alliance. "If the US chooses to attack another Nato country militarily, then everything stops, including Nato and thus the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War,” she said.
Mr Starmer was unequivocal that Britain would stand firmly with its European allies.
“Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark must decide the future of Greenland, and only Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark,” he said.
The President’s comments came after Maga hardliner Katie Miller, the wife of deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, made an X post that placed the American flag across a map of Greenland, accompanied by the word “soon".
That reflects the view of other senior administration figures who have floated the idea of the semi-autonomous Danish territory, which is rich with natural resources, becoming a US state.
But in Greenland’s capital Nuuk, the comments have been met with anger. “That’s enough now,” said Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen. He added that the US taking control of the island was “fantasy”.
Mr Starmer reaffirmed Britain’s support and said the UK would defend Denmark and Greenland’s sovereignty alongside the principle that borders cannot be redrawn by larger powers.
But with global warming and the need to secure vital materials, Greenland’s strategic importance is increasing. The Arctic island, which is the size of western Europe, sits on North Atlantic and Arctic shipping routes that will become ever more navigable as the ice cap melts.
The US military has important bases there, too, including the Pituffik Space Base, which is vital for missile warning and space surveillance and to keep an eye on Russia’s movements. Potentially more important to Mr Trump and his allies are large deposits of rare earth minerals, which are seen as crucial to future technology.
But French government officials reiterated support for the territory’s sovereignty, stressing that any changes must respect international law and cannot be imposed by force.
“Greenland belongs to Greenland’s people and to Denmark's people,” said Pascal Confavreux, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman. "It is up to them to decide what they wish to do. Borders cannot be changed by force."
Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk also warned that Europe risked decline or fragmentation without unity in the face of strategic pressures from the US and other global powers.
No 10 Downing Street confirmed Mr Starmer had not yet spoken to Mr Trump since the operation in Venezuela, but was set to do so on Tuesday after a meeting of European leaders in Paris, at which they will discuss Russia's war on Ukraine.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper was to make a statement to MPs on the situation in Venezuela on Monday, during which she is expected to face more questions on whether the UK backs the capture of Mr Maduro. The UK’s strong position on Greenland adds to the disharmony among Nato allies and the feeling that the US is drifting further away from the international rules-based system.
A poll by YouGov on Monday found 51 per cent of Britons disapproved of US actions to capture Maduro while only 21 per cent approve. The public was split between 32 per cent who think the UK government should have condemned the operation and 34 per cent who back the Starmer line.
