Republican dissent as key figures warn Trump against Greenland pursuit

Donald Trump’s renewed interest in taking control of Greenland has become a subject of pointed dissent among congressional Republicans, with several allies speaking out in recent days against the idea after the president reintensified his interest following the US raid that captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

Congressional Republicans are typically loath to disagree openly with the president, who has repeatedly called for his party’s dissenters to be voted out of office. But amid polling that shows an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose taking control of the island and warnings from Denmark that an invasion would spell the end of Nato, some congressional Republicans have issued forceful warnings against pursuing the issue.

“The thought of the United States taking the position that we would take Greenland, an independent territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, is absurd,” North Carolina senator Thom Tillis said in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday. “Somebody needs to tell the president that the people of Greenland, up until these current times, were actually very, very pro-American and very, very pro American presence.”

Nebraska congressman Don Bacon told the Omaha World-Herald: “If he went through with the threats, I think it would be the end of his presidency. And he needs to know: the off-ramp is realizing Republicans aren’t going to tolerate this and he’s going to have to back off. He hates being told no, but in this case, I think Republicans need to be firm.”

Mitch McConnell, the former Senate Republican leader, compared the possibility of the US seizing Greenland to Joe Biden’s 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, which became an unpopular moment in the Democrat’s presidency.

“Following through on this provocation would be more disastrous for the president’s legacy than withdrawing from Afghanistan was for his predecessor,” McConnell said, warning that it would amount to “incinerating the hard-won trust of loyal allies in exchange for no meaningful change in US access to the Arctic”.

Trump has displayed an expansionist streak in his second term as president and publicly declared that he would like the United States to annex Canada, the Panama canal and Greenland, even though it is part of Denmark, a Nato ally.

The subject appeared to have fallen by the wayside in recent months as Trump grappled with slumping approval ratings driven by public concern over the cost of living and his militarized immigration enforcement campaign but he began fixating on Greenland again after the successful raid in Venezuela that saw Maduro taken to stand trial in a New York court.

European countries have reacted with alarm to Trump’s comments, and troops from France, Germany, the UK, Norway and Sweden arrived in Greenland this week in a show of political support that one country said doubled as a scoping mission for what a sustained deployment in the territory would look like.

The foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark sat down with Trump, vice-president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio on Wednesday, but the meeting did not change the US president’s demands. Trump later said that the US still “needs” Greenland for national security reasons, and on Friday, the president warned he may impose tariffs on countries that oppose his campaign.

Trump has kept the bulk of Republicans in line, even on foreign policy issues. After the Senate last week advanced a war powers resolution that would have required Congress be notified before attack Venezuela again, the president said the five Republicans who joined with Democrats in supporting the measure “should never be elected to office again”. On Wednesday, two of the GOP senator changed their votes this week to kill the resolution.

Tillis – who broke with Trump over his signature domestic policy bill – along with Bacon and McConnell, are not seeking re-election this year. Other Republicans who spoke out against Trump’s campaign for Greenland are among the few to frequently disagree with the president.

“This senator from Alaska does not think it is a good idea, and I want to build on the relationship that we have had,” centrist Lisa Murkowski on Friday said during a visit by a bipartisan congressional delegation to Copenhagen. “Greenland needs to be viewed as our ally, not as an asset.”

There are signs that Republicans closer to the president are uncomfortable with his campaign as well, and in particular the threat it poses to Nato.

“As head of the US delegation to the [Nato parliamentary assembly] , I can not overstate the importance of our transatlantic relationships,” Ohio congressman Mike Turner wrote on X. “We must respect the sovereignty of the Danish and Greenlander people.”

In an interview with CNN last week, Lousiana senator John Kennedy said: “To invade Greenland and attack its sovereignty, a fellow Nato country, would be weapons-grade stupid. President Trump is not weapons-grade stupid.”