Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Sunday that the U.S. moving to take Greenland by force would mark the end of NATO.
“It would be the end of NATO,” Murphy said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” when asked by host Kristen Welker what such a move would result in.
The Connecticut Democrat, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noted that other NATO countries would be required to defend Greenland, pitting the U.S. against longtime allies such as the U.K. and France.
President Trump has again shown interest in acquiring the semiautonomous Danish territory in recent weeks, arguing the island is essential to national security. The U.S. has operated Pituffik Space Base in Greenland since 1943.
The president has also not ruled out the use of military force to take over Greenland, although White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted earlier this week that diplomacy is the administration’s first option. Rubio is set to meet with Danish officials this coming week.
Earlier Sunday, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) — who doubles as Trump’s envoy to Greenland — wrote on the social platform X that the president’s desire to acquire the mineral-rich territory should be met with “hospitality, not hostility.”
But officials in Greenland, Denmark and Europe have pushed back on Trump’s overtures throughout the last year, particularly in recent days.
Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders said Friday the island’s future “must be decided by the Greenlandic people,” according to The Associated Press.
That followed Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen telling Danish broadcaster TV2 on Monday that an American attack on Greenland would end NATO, an alliance formed in 1949 in the wake of World War II.
“If the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, everything stops,” she said.
European leaders, including U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, also joined Frederiksen in saying that Greenland “belongs to its people.”
“It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland,” they wrote Tuesday in a joint statement.
