15 hours ago
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US intelligence agencies have been ordered to focus their spying activities on Greenland in a stark sign of Donald Trump’s determination to acquire the territory.
High-ranking officials working under Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, issued the instruction to agency heads in a “collection emphasis message”, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Such messages customarily help to set intelligence priorities and direct resources and attention to high-interest targets.
The Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency were all included in the message. It told chiefs to study Greenland’s independence movement and attitudes to American efforts to extract resources on the island, according to the Journal, citing two unnamed officials familiar with the matter.
Seasoned intelligence operatives say the arctic island of some 56,000 inhabitants has not historically been a target of US espionage activity.
The move will further alarm Denmark, a US ally and Nato member, which has repeatedly vowed that the island is not available for sale or annexation. The country is planning to spend $1.5bn to protect Greenland, which has autonomous status under Denmark’s constitutional monarchy.
Trump, who has mused since his first presidency about the possibility of possessing Greenland, refused to rule out seizing the 836,000 sq ft territory by force in an interview with NBC that was broadcast last weekend.
“I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything,” he said. “We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of, and we’ll cherish them, and all of that. But we need that for international security.”
The comments renewed a vow the president made in an address to a joint session of Congress in March, when he said: “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
The Journal quoted a National Security Council spokesman, James Hewitt, as saying: “The president has been very clear that the U.S. is concerned about the security of Greenland and the Arctic.” He declined to comment on the switch of intelligence focus to the island.
Gabbard issued a statement saying the newspaper “should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors who seek to undermine the president by politicizing and leaking classified information.”
Denmark’s embassy in Washington has not commented.
The intelligence messages follows a visit to Greenland in March by Vice President JD Vance, the then national security adviser Mike Waltz, and Chris Wright, the energy secretary, that was fiercely condemned by Danish leaders and local Greenland politicians.
Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister, said the visit put “completely unacceptable pressure completely unacceptable pressure on Greenland, Greenlandic politicians and the Greenlandic population.”
She added: “President Trump is serious. He wants Greenland.”
