Donald Trump has set his sights on acquiring Greenland, a move that he appears determined to achieve without resorting to military action, according to Marco Rubio.

In a private meeting held on Monday, the Secretary of State briefed a select group of lawmakers following the White House’s contentious suggestion of potentially invading the Danish territory of Greenland.

According to sources familiar with the briefing, Rubio revealed that the Trump administration’s ultimate goal is to purchase the island. This information was reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The comments emerged during a high-profile briefing by senior White House officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine. The discussions centered around the operation to capture Nicolas Maduro and future strategies concerning Venezuela.

Rubio’s remarks came in response to a query from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who questioned whether Trump was considering military interventions in other regions such as Mexico and Greenland, as reported by the Journal.

The Secretary of State told reporters on Capitol Hill, where he was again briefing senators on Wednesday, that he plans to meet with Danish officials next week.

Denmark, a NATO member, last week requested talks with the US over Trump’s renewed threats against Greenland after Maduro’s capture. 

Tensions with the bloc ratcheted higher this morning when Trump attacked the alliance for not paying its fair share and relying on US defense. 

Donald Trump, seen speaking at the Kennedy Center on January 6, has recently reiterated his desire to take over Greenland, owned by NATO member Denmark

Marco Rubio is said to have dismissed the idea of a Venezuela-style operation in Greenland. He is seen with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday

Danish military forces participate in an exercise with troops from other NATO members in the Arctic Ocean in Nuuk, Greenland, on September 15 last year

The President ripped into ‘fans’ of the post-WWII military alliance with a reminder that ‘most weren’t paying their bills’ – just 2 percent of their GDP on defense, well short of the 5 percent target set last summer at the Hague.

‘Until I came along,’ Trump wrote on Wednesday morning. ‘The USA was, foolishly, paying for them.’

‘Russia and China have zero fear of NATO without the United States, and I doubt NATO would be there for us if we really needed them,’ he added.

‘We will always be there for NATO, even if they won’t be there for us. The only nation that China and Russia fear and respect is the DJT-rebuilt USA.’

The broadside comes as the US, in another show of its military superiority, seized a Russian oil tanker off the north coast of Scotland. Moscow had recently dispatched a submarine to escort the vessel, which was smuggling sanctioned oil from Venezuela.

Europe is on edge after Trump threatened to seize Greenland following his capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in the early hours of Saturday. 

Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen warned earlier this week that a US takeover would amount to the end of NATO. 

The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom joined her in a statement Tuesday reaffirming that the mineral-rich island, which guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America, ‘belongs to its people.’

Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenland counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, have requested a meeting with Rubio, a statement posted Tuesday to Greenland’s government website said. 

Thomas Crosbie, an associate professor of military operations at the Royal Danish Defense College, said an American takeover would not improve upon Washington’s current security strategy.

‘The United States will gain no advantage if its flag is flying in Nuuk versus the Greenlandic flag,’ he said.

‘There’s no benefits to them because they already enjoy all of the advantages they want. If there’s any specific security access that they want to improve American security, they’ll be given it as a matter of course, as a trusted ally. So this has nothing to do with improving national security for the United States.’ 

The island, which is more than three times the size of Texas, has been a strategic hub since the Second World War, when it served as a base to protect Allied shipping lanes from the Nazis. 

It is also a resource gold mine, containing 25 of the 34 rare earth minerals categorized as ‘critical’ by the EU. 

China currently dominates the global supply and processing of these minerals, up to 90 percent in some cases.

While Greenland currently bans offshore oil and gas extraction for environmental reasons, some estimate the total value of the island’s resources at $4 trillion.

JD Vance visited Greenland last March, specifically the US military’s Pituffik Space Base 

Denmark’s parliament approved a bill last June to allow US military bases on Danish soil. 

It widened a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where American troops had broad access to Danish airbases in the Scandinavian country.

Rasmussen wrote over the summer, in response to lawmakers’ questions, that Denmark would be able to terminate the agreement if the US tried to annex all or part of Greenland. 

But in the event of a military action, the US Department of Defense currently operates the remote Pituffik Space Base, in northwestern Greenland, and the troops there could be mobilized.

Crosbie said he believes the US would not seek to hurt the local population or engage with Danish troops.

‘They don’t need to bring any firepower. They don’ need to bring anybody.’ Crosbie said Wednesday.

‘They could just direct the military personnel currently there to drive to the center of Nuuk and just say, “This is America now,” right? And that would lead to the same response as if they flew in 500 or 1,000 people.’

The danger in an American annexation, he said, lies in the ‘erosion of the rule of law globally and to the perception that there are any norms protecting anybody on the planet.’

He added: ‘The impact is changing the map. The impact I don’t think would be storming the parliament.’

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Tuesday he spoke by phone with Rubio, who dismissed the idea of a Venezuela-style operation in Greenland. 

‘In the United States, there is massive support for the country belonging to NATO – a membership that, from one day to the next, would be compromised by … any form of aggressiveness toward another member of NATO,’ Barrot told France Inter radio on Wednesday.

US Army Green Berets with the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) during a training exercise on Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, in February 2024

Katie Miller, wife of Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Steven Miller, posted a map of Greenland covered by the American flag on X just hours after the US captured Nicolás Maduro

Asked whether he has a plan in case Trump claims Greenland, Barrot said he would not engage in ‘fiction diplomacy.’

Most Republicans have supported the President’s statement, but Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis, the Democratic and Republican co-chairmen of the bipartisan Senate NATO Observer Group, have criticized Trump’s rhetoric. 

Their statement on Tuesday said: ‘When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honor its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark.

‘Any suggestion that our nation would subject a fellow NATO ally to coercion or external pressure undermines the very principles of self-determination that our Alliance exists to defend.’