US President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during a bilateral meeting at the Bestep Presidential Compound, following Trump’s arrival to attend the annual NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey on July 7, 2026.
Vin McNamee | getty images
President Donald Trump on Tuesday renewed his pressure on the US to annex Greenland and suggested the US could pull all of its armed services members out of Europe in response to continued pressure from the continent on the issue.
“The island area should be controlled by the United States,” Trump said shortly after arriving in Ankara, Turkey, for a summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.
The 32-member alliance – which also includes Denmark, of which Greenland is a part – ran into crisis in January as Trump demanded the US take control of the island territory on national security grounds.
In a bilateral meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday afternoon Ankara time, Trump said Europe’s refusal to go along with his expansionist desires “has hurt my relationship with NATO.”
“Because Greenland doesn’t help Denmark. Denmark doesn’t actually spend money to help Greenland, but it’s an important part for the United States,” Trump told reporters.
“And it’s surrounded by Chinese ships and Russian ships, and that’s not going to happen, ships, is, that’s not going to happen,” he said, repeating claims of foreign military threats against the self-ruled island. Greenland experts have denied.
Trump further said, “Greenland should be controlled by the United States, not Denmark.” “And when they won’t go along with it, and we spend all the money to help them with Russia – we don’t have to spend any money.”
“We can get all our troops out of Europe,” he said. “Because as you probably noticed, Europe is a very different place than it was 20 years ago.”
“And they better be careful,” Trump added, speaking broadly about Europe, “with immigration and energy. If they’re not careful with those two things, you won’t have Europe anymore.”
After this he ended the part of the meeting which was open to the press.
Trump’s comments have thrust Greenland, a vast, sparsely populated and largely frozen Arctic island back into the geopolitical spotlight.
Trump has long argued that the US needs control of the Danish territory, saying in 2019 that his administration was interested in purchasing the island because it was essential to US national security – but at the time, he acknowledged that the idea was “not number one on the burner.”