However, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen organized a meeting with party leaders on Thursday to discuss the issue, while Rasmussen backpedaled on his initial nonchalant reaction. “We are taking this very seriously, but we don’t have any ambition to escalate a war of words with a president that is on the way into the White House,” he said.

Unfit to fight an invasion

Under the 1951 pact, the U.S. accepted the legal obligation to defend against any attack on the massive Arctic island, given the inability of the Danish armed forces to fight off a potential aggressor without help.

“Denmark has been very aware it cannot defend Greenland against anybody on its own,” said Kristian Søby Kristensen, a senior researcher at the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Military Studies. If Trump did try to seize the territory by force, “the question is: Who would [the Americans] be fighting? Their own military? They’re already there,” he added.

The U.S. significantly reduced its military presence on the island after the Cold War ended, but an early warning radar station remains at the Pituffik space base in the northwest of Greenland. It’s a key asset that can spot spacecraft and ballistic missiles, including potential nuclear warheads launched by Moscow.

Meanwhile, Denmark’s armed forces are neither equipped nor trained to resist a U.S. invasion. They “have been taking care of more mundane peace-time military activity,” explained Søby Kristensen, and regularly deploy maritime patrol aircraft and ships in Greenlandic waters.

In December last year, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced a new defense-spending package worth a “double digit billion amount” in krone to buy two long-range drones, two dog sled patrols, and two inspection ships. The money was also to fund the hiring of more people for Denmark’s Arctic Command in the capital, Nuuk, and an upgrade to Kangerlussuaq Airport to make it fit for F-35 fighter jets.