Denmark did not invite the United States to take part in a large-scale international military exercise on Greenland this week, as it had previously, as tensions remain high over President Donald Trump’s intention to acquire the Danish territory.
The exercise, the largest in Greenland’s modern history, comes amid increased interest in the Arctic region and its vast natural resources from other large powers, such as Russia and China.
It included contributions from the militaries of several European NATO allies, according to the Danish military. More than 550 people and soldiers took part, including more than 70 from France, Germany, Norway and Sweden.
Military observers from the United States were present, and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was invited, but Denmark’s Arctic commander, Soren Andersen, told reporters that the United States’ military was not invited to participate in the training.
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“We work together with colleagues on the U.S. Pituffik Space Base, but they were not invited with units for this exercise,” Andersen said. He added that the Danish military had “a very good relationship with the U.S. military.” Pituffik Space Base is the only U.S. base in the country, located in northwestern Greenland. The Danish military later said that Danish F-12 fighter jets visited the base, and that the pilots had coffee with the U.S. base’s deputy commander
The official goal of the exercise was to strengthen the operational readiness of the armed forces of both Denmark and Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.
It comes as the Arctic region is becoming more of a priority to various superpowers, friend and foe. Greenland is the world’s largest island that is not a continent, and beyond its strategic potential, the island is rich in natural resources, home to 25 of the 34 minerals categorized as “critical raw materials” by the European Commission. Some of these minerals include those essential to the production of phones and computer chips.
Anderson emphasized the potential threat of Russia and China to reporters.
“I think it’s fair to say that Russia has built up in the Arctic for the last 20 years, and Russia is a regional superpower in the Arctic,” he said. “And I think we can see that in the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia, that they conduct operations that we have never seen before. We see that they work together with Chinese coast guard ships and so on, so forth.”
Yet, the exercise also comes amid rising tensions with a supposed ally in the United States, since President Trump has made clear his intentions to claim the island for the U.S.
“We need Greenland for national security and even international security,” Trump said during an address to Congress in March, pointing to the influence of other global powers in the Arctic, specifically Russia and China. “And I think we’re going to get it one way or the other,” he added. Trump is trying to boost production of computer chips in the United States, which rely on minerals present in Greenland for production
Danish officials have made it clear that Trump’s interest in the region is not welcome.
The Wall Street Journal reported in May that the Director of National Intelligence had ordered U.S. spies to increase intelligence gathering about Greenland’s independence movement, a move that the Trump Administration never publicly denied.
Just last month, Denmark’s foreign minister summoned Mark Stroh, the U.S. charge d’affaires in Copenhagen, after a local broadcast reported that several members of Trump’s administration had launched a covert influence operations in Greenland, gathering names of those who would be willing to participate in a secessionist movement from Denmark.
At the time, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen confirmed in a statement to TIME that he had Stroh, and said that attempts of any country to “interfere” with the Kingdom of Denmark would “of course be unacceptable.”
A U.S. State Department official later stated after the meeting that the nations “reaffirmed” strong ties between Denmark, Greenland, and the U.S. and that “the United States respects the right of the people of Greenland to determine their own future.”