Greenland's prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said at a press conference Thursday that he wasn't sure what President Donald Trump meant when he said a deal had been agreed to over his island.
"Nobody else than Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark have the mandate to make deals or agreements about Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark without us," Nielsen said.
"That's not going to happen," he added.
"In terms of the deal that's been [talked] about, I don't know what's concrete in that deal, either. But I know that we have now a high-level working group working on a solution for both parties," Nielsen continued.
He stressed his countries have red lines they will not cross.
"We have said from the beginning in Greenland, we have some red lines. We cannot cross the red lines," Nielsen said.
"We have to respect our territorial integrity," Nielsen added. "We have to respect international law."
Trump said the details of a U.S. agreement over Greenland were still being worked out on Thursday, speaking one day after he stepped back from a tariff threat and ruled out the use of force to seize the semiautonomous Danish territory.
In an interview from Davos, Switzerland, Trump also acknowledged the impact of his quest for Greenland on global markets and said he did not plan to pay to acquire it.
"It's really being negotiated now, the details of it. But essentially it's total access. It's — there's no end, there's no time limit," Trump said from the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
"I noticed the stock market went up very substantially after we announced it," Trump added.
Trump also threatened big retaliation if Europeans sell U.S. stocks and bonds and said they would not have to pay anything for total access to Greenland to build a Golden Dome.
"We're getting everything we want at no cost," Trump said.
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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