Trump had ‘horrendous’ call with Danish PM over Greenland: Report

US President Donald Trump had a “fiery” and contentious phone call with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen last week, during which Trump insisted he was serious about taking over Greenland, European officials told the Financial Times.

The officials, who were not identified by the FT, said the conversation had gone very badly, with one describing it as “horrendous.” Another official said that Trump’s intention to take over Greenland was “serious, and potentially very dangerous.”

For weeks, Trump has voiced his interest in taking over Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada, in what analysts say reflect his hardball diplomacy. Frederiksen has asserted that Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, is not for sale.

While her office dismissed the officials’ “interpretation” of the Trump call, one former Danish official told the FT that Trump also threatened to target Denmark with tariffs.

Trump’s critics have warned that his interest in Greenland — which occupies a strategically important position for the US — will destabilize the US alliance with Denmark, Semafor reported, while Trump allies argue that a bigger role for the US in Greenland would be vital to national security in countering Russia and China.

The call is “likely to deepen European concerns that Trump’s return to power will strain transatlantic ties more than ever,” the FT wrote, while Atlantic writer Anne Applebaum argued that for Denmark, “the most difficult aspect of the crisis is not the need to prepare for an unspecified economic threat from a close ally, but the need to cope with a sudden sense of almost Kafkaesque absurdity.”