European troops arrive in Greenland as US faces future wall EU News

France sent 15 soldiers, Germany 13. Norway, Sweden also participated to strengthen security on the Arctic island.

Soldiers have started arriving from France, Germany and other European countries Greenland President Donald Trump highlights “fundamental disagreements” over helping to boost Arctic island security after talks involving Denmark, Greenland and the United States Trump’s Administration and its European allies.

France has already sent 15 soldiers and Germany 13. Norway and Sweden are also participating.

The campaign has been described as an exercise in identifying the region, with troops to plant the EU flag on Greenland as a symbolic act.

“The first French military units are already on the way” and “others will follow”, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday as French officials said soldiers from the country’s mountain infantry unit were already in the Greenlandic capital of Nuuk.

France said the two-day mission was a way to show that EU troops could be deployed quickly if needed.

Meanwhile, Germany’s defense ministry said it was deploying a 13-person reconnaissance team to Greenland on Thursday.

Denmark announced plans to increase its own military presence in Greenland on Wednesday as Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers met with White House representatives in Washington, DC to discuss Trump’s intentions to seize the semi-autonomous Danish territory to tap mineral resources amid growing Russian and Chinese interests.

But two foreign ministers emerged from this meeting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance have made some progress in dissuading Washington from seizing Greenland.

“We have not been able to change the US position,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters. “It is clear that the president wants to win over Greenland.”

His Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, called on the US to cooperate but this did not mean that the country wanted to be “owned by the United States”.

The pair announced their intention to establish a working group to address concerns about control over Greenland and security in the Arctic.

“We really need it (Greenland),” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after Wednesday’s meeting. “If we don’t go in, Russia is going to go in and China is going to go in. And Denmark can’t do anything about it, but we can do everything about it.”

Trump said he had not yet been briefed on the content of the White House meeting when he made his comments.

Inuit communities around the town of Ilulissat, on the island’s western ice fringes, have raised fears about the possibility of the US landing on Greenland and extracting minerals.

Before Wednesday’s meeting, Inuit Greenlander Carl Sandgreen, head of the Ilulissat Icefjord Visitor Center, told Al Jazeera: “I hope Rubio has some humanity in that discussion.”

His fear is for the Inuit way of life.

“We are completely different. We are Inuit and we have lived here for thousands of years.” he said “This is my daughter’s and my son’s future, not the future of people who care about resources.”