TORONTO (AP) — Canada's Indigenous governor general and its foreign minister will visit Greenland in early February, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday.
The visit comes as U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his call for the U.S. to take control of Greenland, the Inuit self-governing territory of the kingdom of Denmark. Trump has also previously talked about making Canada the 51st state.
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand and Governor General Mary Simon, who is of Inuk descent, are expected to open a consulate in Nuuk, Greenland.
“The future of Greenland and Denmark are decided solely by the people of Denmark,” Carney said while meeting with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at Canada's embassy in Paris.
Anand posted a video of Carney meeting with Frederiksen on social media and said she will be in Nuuk in the coming weeks to officially open Canada’s consulate and “mark a concrete step in strengthening our engagement in support of Denmark’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, including Greenland.”
The island of Greenland, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people.
Simon became Canada's first Indigenous governor general in 2021 and previously served as Canada's ambassador to Denmark. The governor general is the representative of Britain’s King Charles III, who is the head of state in Canada, which is a member of the Commonwealth of former colonies.
"At the request of the Prime Minister, the Governor General is expected to visit the Kingdom of Denmark and Greenland. Our two nations share a 3,000 km (1,864 mile) maritime border, as well as deep historical and cultural connections between Inuit communities,” Simon's office said an email.
The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom joined Denmark's Frederiksen on Tuesday in defending Greenland’s sovereignty in the wake of Trump’s comments about Greenland, which is part of the NATO military alliance. The leaders issued a statement reaffirming the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island “belongs to its people."
Frederiksen and Carney are in Paris for the “coalition of the willing” talks on Ukraine, but Carney made a point of meeting with Frederiksen and NATO's secretary-general ahead of those meetings.
"You have been very clear in your statement when it comes to the respect for national sovereignty,” Frederiksen said to Carney. “We are both into securing the Arctic region and together with all our NATO allies we can secure the region, so hopefully everybody is willing to work together.”
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, said Monday that Greenland should be part of the United States in spite of a warning by Frederiksen that a U.S. takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of NATO.
Trump has argued the U.S. needs to control Greenland to ensure the security of the NATO territory in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic. “It’s so strategic right now,” he told reporters Sunday.
Carney said he’s made Arctic security a priority.
“We are making progress within NATO but we have to do more,” Carney said at an earlier press conference in Paris.
Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said it's important at this point for Canada to show solidarity with the people of Greenland.
“It is vital for Canada partly because we are a major Arctic country and that Greenland is our neighbor, and partly because we have a strong incentive to stand for international law and against Trump-style bullying and aggression," Béland said.
But Béland said Carney wants to avoid upsetting Trump as the free trade agreement between the two major trading partners is renegotiated this year.
“It’s a tough balancing act for the prime minister,” Béland said.
FILE - Governor General of Canada Mary Simon speaks at the Invictus Games opening ceremony in Vancouver, Canada, Feb. 8, 2025. (Ethan Cairns/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, right, takes part in a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen, at the Canadian Embassy in Paris, France, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, right, takes part in a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen, at the Canadian Embassy in Paris, France, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somalia's government on Thursday denied an allegation by the U.S. government that authorities in Mogadishu destroyed an American-funded warehouse belonging to the World Food Program and seized food aid earmarked for impoverished civilians.
The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that it has suspended all assistance from Washington to Somalia’s federal government over the allegations, saying the Trump administration has "a zero-tolerance policy for waste, theft and diversion of life-saving assistance.”
A senior U.S. State Department official said authorities at the Mogadishu port demolished the warehouse of the World Food Program, a Rome-based U.N. agency, at the direction of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud “with no prior notification or coordination with international donor countries, including the United States.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private reporting from American diplomats in the region.
Somalia’s foreign ministry said that the food in question wasn't destroyed and that “the commodities referenced in recent reports remain under the custody and control of the World Food Program, including assistance provided by the United States.”
The foreign ministry said expansion and repurposing works at the Mogadishu port are underway as part of broader developments, but ongoing activities there have not affected the custody and distribution of humanitarian assistance.
Somalia “remains fully committed to humanitarian principles, transparency, and accountability, and values its partnership with the United States and all international donors,” it said. It gave no other details.
The WFP told The Associated Press in a statement that its warehouse in Mogadishu port had been demolished by port authorities. The organization said the warehouse contained 75 metric tones of specialized foods intended for the treatment of malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls and young children.
In a later update, the WFP said it had “retrieved 75 metric tons of nutritional commodities” without explaining further details on how the material was retried.
“The warehouse is crucial for WFP’s emergency operations at a moment when almost a quarter of the population (4.4 million people) are facing crisis levels of hunger or worse in Somalia,” the statement said.
Located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia is one of the world’s poorest nations and has been beset by chronic strife and insecurity exacerbated by multiple natural disasters, including severe droughts, for decades.
The U.S. provided $770 million in assistance for projects in Somalia during the last year of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, but only a fraction of that went directly to the government.
The U.S. suspension comes as the Trump administration has ratcheted up criticism of Somali refugees and migrants in the United States, including over fraud allegations involving child care centers in Minnesota. It has slapped significant restrictions on Somalis wanting to come to the U.S. and made it difficult for those already in the United States to stay.
It wasn't immediately clear how much assistance would be affected by the suspension because the Trump administration has slashed foreign aid expenditures, dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and not released new country-by-country data.
South Sudan, another African country facing conflict and food shortage, is also heavily affected by U.S. aid restrictions. On Thursday, the U.S. suspended foreign assistance to a county in South Sudan's Jonglei state, and similar assistance to Western Bahr el-Ghazal state was under review, the U.S. Embassy in South Sudan said in a statement.
That statement charged that South Sudanese officials “take advantage of the United States instead of working in partnership with us to help the South Sudanese people.”
The U.S. measures “follow continued abuse, exploitation, and theft directed against U.S. foreign assistance by South Sudanese officials at national, state, and county levels,” it said.
There was no immediate comment from South Sudan's government.
Matthew Lee contributed reporting from Washington and Vanessa Gera from Warsaw, Poland. Machol reported from Juba, South Sudan.
FILE - Workers distribute food aid from the World Food Program at a refugee camp in Dolo, Somalia on July 18. 2012. (AP Photo/Jason Straziuso, file)
FILE - In this May 18, 2019 file photo, newly-arrived women who fled drought line up to receive food distributed by local volunteers at a camp for displaced persons in the Daynile neighborhood on the outskirts of the Somalian capital Mogadishu. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh, file)
