Starmer tells Trump: 'Hands off Greenland'

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has delivered a blunt warning to President Donald Trump over renewed demands for the annexation of Greenland, telling the US leader to keep his “hands off” the territory.

With the US's capture of Venezuela's leader Nicolas Maduro still reverberating across Europe, there is growing nervousness over what the White House might do next. At the weekend the US removed Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro from the country and has taken him to New York, where he was due in court on Monday on charges of “narco-terrorism”.

Mr Starmer was publicly cautious in his response and said democracy and the rule of law remain essential. He added most Labour MPs share his view.

“We will always defend the international rule of law,” he said, and the US “will have to justify the action it has taken". However, he repeatedly declined to say if Washington had acted within international law.

Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which is also a Nato member, and Mr Starmer was unequivocal that Britain would stand firmly with its European allies.

Asked if he would tell Mr Trump to keep his “hands off Greenland”, Mr Starmer replied “yes”.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has warned US President Donald Trump against considering annexing Greenland. Getty Images

“Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark must decide the future of Greenland, and only Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark,” he said. “Denmark is a close ally in Europe, is a Nato ally, and it is very important that the future of Greenland is for the Kingdom of Denmark, and for Greenland themselves.”

The move, seen as the most assertive US intervention to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has sparked murmurs among allies of Mr Trump that the President should follow through on his idea of acquiring Greenland as a US territory.

It follows remarks from Mr Trump in which he said the US needed Greenland "from the standpoint of national security”.

The President’s comments came after Maga hardliner Katie Miller, the wife of deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, made an X post that placed the American flag across a map of Greenland, accompanied by the word “soon".

That reflects the view of other senior administration figures who have floated the idea of the semi-autonomous Danish territory, which is rich with natural resources, becoming a US state.

But in Greenland’s capital Nuuk, the comments have been met with anger. “That’s enough now,” said Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen. He added that the US taking control of the island was “fantasy”.

That disbelief was echoed by Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s Prime Minister, who said the US “has no right to annex any of the three nations in the Danish kingdom”, made up of Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

US Vice President JD Vance, centre, during a tour of the US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland.