Denmark, Greenland leaders stand united against Trump's Greenland takeover call ahead of key meeting

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — The leaders of Denmark and the country's territory of Greenland on Tuesday offered a united front against President Donald Trump's calls for the United States to take over the strategic Arctic island on the eve of critical meetings in Washington on the matter.

In perhaps their sharpest pushback to date, Denmark and Greenland's prime ministers underscored that the territory is part of Denmark, and thus covered by the umbrella of the NATO military alliance. A U.S. attempt to take over or force the secession of the massive island would tear apart the transatlantic alliance, which has been a linchpin of post-World War II security.

But Trump brushed off the concern, telling reporters in Washington, “That's their problem.”

The leaders, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, sought to underscore their solidarity as their foreign ministers, Denmark's Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland's Vivian Motzfeldt, prepared for talks at the White House on Wednesday with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Dear Greenlanders, you should know that we stand together today, we will do so tomorrow, and we will continue to do so," Frederiksen said during a joint press conference in Copenhagen.

“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," said Greenland's Nielsen.

Tensions have grown this month as Trump has ramped up calls for a U.S. takeover of the island. He has repeatedly said he's considering a range of options, including military force, to acquire Greenland.

Asked by reporters about Nielsen's comments saying Greenland preferred to stay with Denmark, Trump said: “I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know anything about him. But, that’s going to be a big problem for him.”

Trump earlier this week reiterated his argument that the U.S. needs to “take Greenland,” otherwise Russia or China would. He also says he’d rather “make a deal” for the territory, “but one way or the other, we’re going to have Greenland.”

Danish officials have made clear they are open to expanding cooperation with the U.S. military in Greenland, but have repeatedly stated the territory is not for sale.

Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations on the island to just the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest with roughly 200 soldiers today. The base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

Denmark’s parliament approved a bill last June to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil. It widened a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where U.S. troops had broad access to Danish air bases in the Scandinavian country.

Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for business and mineral resources, said it’s “unfathomable” that the United States is discussing taking over a NATO ally and urged the Trump administration to listen to voices from the Arctic island's people. Nathanielsen added that people in Greenland are “very, very worried” over the U.S. administration’s desire for control of Greenland.

“People are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Nathanielsen said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament.

Meanwhile, Danish officials have also sought to underscore that Denmark has remained a faithful ally of the United States.

A Danish government official confirmed on Tuesday that Denmark provided U.S. forces in the east Atlantic with support last week as they intercepted an oil tanker for alleged violations of U.S. sanctions.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, declined to provide details about what the support entailed.

The U.S. interception in the Atlantic capped a weeks-long pursuit of the tanker that began in the Caribbean Sea as the U.S. imposed a blockade in the waters of Venezuela aimed at capturing sanctioned vessels coming in and out of the South American country.

The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Danish support for the U.S. operation was first reported by Newsmax.

Separately, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte refused to be drawn into the dispute, insisting that it was not his role to get involved.

“I never, ever comment when there are discussions within the alliance,” Rutte said, at the European Parliament in Brussels. “My role has to be to make sure we solve issues.”

He said that the 32-nation military alliance must focus on providing security in the Arctic region, which includes Greenland. “When it comes to the protection of the High North, that is my role.”

Nathanielsen said Greenlanders understand the need for increased monitoring in the Arctic amid growing geopolitical insecurity. But she said “it is just unfathomable to understand” that Greenland could be facing the prospect of being sold or annexed.

A bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation is headed to Copenhagen for meetings on Friday and Saturday in an attempt to show unity between the United States and Denmark.

Nathanielsen said she thinks the people of Greenland should have a say in their own future.

“My deepest dream or hope is that the people of Greenland will get a say no matter what," she said. "For others this might be a piece of land, but for us it’s home.”

Moulson reported from Berlin and Madhani from Washington. Jill Lawless in London, Darlene Superville and Matthew Lee in Washington and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

People walk out from a plane after arriving at the airport, in Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland's Minister for Business, speaks during a press conference in the Houses of Parliament in London, England, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland's Minister for Business, speaks during a press conference in the Houses of Parliament in London, England, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Vice President JD Vance speaks during a briefing at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

NEW YORK (AP) — Up until this week, Wall Street has generally benefited from the Trump administration’s policies and has been supportive of the president. That relationship has suddenly soured.

When President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law in July, it pushed another significant round of tax cuts and also cut the budget of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, at times the banking industry's nemesis, by nearly half. Trump’s bank regulators have also been pushing a deregulatory agenda that both banks and large corporations have embraced.

But now the president has proposed a one-year, 10% cap on the interest rate on credit cards, a lucrative business for many financial institutions, and his Department of Justice has launched an investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that many say threatens the institution that is supposed to set interest rates free of political interference.

Bank CEOs warned the White House on Tuesday that Trump’s actions will do more harm than good to the American economy. But in response, Trump did not back down on his proposals or attacks on the Fed.

BNY Chief Executive Officer Robin Vince told reporters that going after the Fed’s independence “doesn’t seem, to us, to be accomplishing the administration’s primary objectives for things like affordability, reducing the cost of borrowing, reducing the cost of mortgages, reducing the cost of everyday living for Americans.”

“Let’s not shake the foundation of the bond market and potentially do something that could cause interest rates to actually get pushed up, because somehow there’s lack of confidence in the Fed’s independence,” Vince added.

The Federal Reserve’s independence is sacrosanct among the big banks. While banks may have wanted Powell and other Fed policymakers to move interest rates one way or another more quickly, they have generally understood why Powell has done what he's done.

“I don’t agree with everything the Fed has done. I do have enormous respect for Jay Powell, the man,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told reporters Tuesday.

Dimon's message did not seem to resonate with President Trump, who told journalists that Dimon is wrong in saying it’s not a great idea to chip away at the Federal Reserve’s independence by going after Chair Jerome Powell.

“Yeah, I think it’s fine what I’m doing,” Trump said Tuesday in response to a reporter’s question at Joint Base Andrews after returning from a day trip to Michigan. He called Powell “a bad Fed person” who has “done a bad job.”

Along with the attacks on the Fed, President Trump is going after the credit card industry. With “affordability” likely to be a key issue in this year’s midterm elections, Trump wants to lower costs for consumers and says he wants a 10% cap on credit card interest rates in place by Jan. 20. Whether he hopes to accomplish this by bullying the credit card industry into just capping interest rates voluntarily, or through some sort of executive action, is unclear.

The average interest rate on credit cards is between 19.65% and 21.5%, according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. A cap of 10% would likely cost banks roughly $100 billion in lost revenue per year, researchers at Vanderbilt University found. Shares of credit card companies like American Express, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Capital One and others fell sharply Monday as investors worried about the potential hit to profits these banks may face if an interest rate cap were implemented.

In a call with reporters, JPMorgan’s Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Barnum indicated the industry was willing to fight with all resources at its disposal to stop the Trump administration from capping those rates. JPMorgan is one of the nation's biggest credit card companies, with its customers collectively holding $239.4 billion in balances with the bank, and having major co-brand partnerships with companies such as United Airlines and Amazon. JPMorgan also recently acquired the Apple Card credit card portfolio from Goldman Sachs.

“Our belief is that actions like this will have the exact opposite consequence to what the administration wants in terms of helping consumers,” Barnum said. “Instead of lowering the price of credit, it will simply reduce the supply of credit, and that will be bad for everyone: consumers, the broader economy, and yes, for us, also.”

Even the major airline and hotel partners who partner with banks to issue their cards were also not pleased with the White House's push to cap interest rates.

“I think one of the big issues and challenges with (a potential cap) is the fact that it would actually restrict the lower end consumer from having access to any credit, not just what the interest rate they’re paying, which would upend the whole credit card industry,” said Ed Bastion, CEO of Delta Air Lines, to analysts on Tuesday. Delta has a major partnership with American Express, and its co-brand credit card brings in billions of dollars in revenue for Delta.

Trump seemed to double down on his attacks on the credit card industry overnight. In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, he said he endorsed a bill introduced by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, that would likely cut into the revenue banks earn from merchants whenever they accept a credit card at point-of-sale.

“Everyone should support great Republican Senator Roger Marshall’s Credit Card Competition Act, in order to stop the out of control Swipe Fee ripoff,” Trump wrote.

Trump told reporters Tuesday that he was not going to back down the credit card interest rate issue.

“We should have lower rates. Jamie Dimon probably wants higher rates. Maybe he makes more money that way,” Trump said.

The comments from Wall Street are coming as the major banks report their quarterly results. JPMorgan, the nation’s largest consumer and investment bank, and The Bank of New York Mellon Corp., one of the world’s largest custodial banks, both reported their results Tuesday with Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and others to report later this week.

FILE - Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, speaks at the America Business Forum, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, file)