Iceland’s foreign ministry said it has summoned the U.S. ambassador Billy Long to a meeting after U.S. President Donald Trump posted a map that showed the island covered with the U.S. flag, according to Icelandic public broadcaster RUV.
On Monday, Trump posted an image with a map of North America, showing countries like Canada, Greenland and Iceland coloured in with the American flag.
The map was labelled as “United States of America” and he shared the post without adding any further explanation.
“It is an insult to Icelanders, Canadians and Greenlanders,” Iceland’s prime minister Kristrun Frostadottir told reporters on Tuesday, referencing Trump’s Monday post on Truth Social.
“There is nothing funny or normal about making fun of the sovereignty of states, especially today, when sovereignty cannot be taken for granted,” Frostadottir added.
Frostadottir added that the reason to summon the ambassador for a meeting was to “make it absolutely clear that, from our perspective, this was completely unacceptable.”
“People within the U.S. administration have repeatedly told me that we should not take the current U.S. president literally, but we should take him seriously,” she added. “That is exactly what we are doing, and we are stressing that Iceland is a sovereign, independent state that is responsible for its own future.”
“No one else can decide or bargain over our independence or sovereignty. We do that on our own terms. We do it here at home, together,” Frostadottir said.
Frostadottir said that Iceland would continue to stand with the people of Greenland and would not soften its position on the matter, according to RUV.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen called the post “disturbing and, in many ways, completely inappropriate.”
“It’s obviously a sign that the U.S. president still harbors some kind of maximalist vision in his own mind. We need to rein that in,” Løkke Rasmussen told the national broadcaster DR on Tuesday.
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The Arctic states have been on edge since Trump ramped up his rhetoric at the start of the year about U.S. control of Greenland.
His post came Monday as the European Union sought to reassure Greenland with the promise of a stronger partnership and hundreds of millions of euros in investment following Trump’s repeated threats.
This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has shared a map with Greenland covered with the American flag.
In January, Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, posted on X of the territory covered with the American flag, writing, “SOON.”
Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen addressed the photo in a post at the time, writing, “First and foremost, let me say calmly and clearly, that there is neither reason for panic nor for insecurity.”
“The photo shared by Katie Miller of Greenland being produced wrapped in an American flag doesn’t change anything. Our country is not for sale and our future is not determined by social media posts,” he wrote.
“But the picture is disrespectful. The relations between countries and people are based on respect and on international law and not on symbolic markings that ignore our status and our rights.
“There’s no need to panic. But there’s good reason to speak up against the lack of respect.”
Trump has repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that is an autonomous self-governing Danish territory.
Trump said in January that anything less than the Arctic island being in U.S. hands would be “unacceptable.”
During an unrelated event at the White House about rural health care, he recounted how he had threatened European allies with tariffs on pharmaceuticals.
“I may do that for Greenland too,” Trump said. “I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security. So I may do that.”
European leaders have insisted that it is only for Denmark and Greenland to decide on matters concerning the territory, and Denmark said it was increasing its military presence in Greenland in co-operation with allies.
By July, Trump revived his Greenland rhetoric and said that the United States should control the territory while threatening to “remove” U.S. troops in Europe.
“Greenland doesn’t help Denmark. Denmark doesn’t spend money to really help Greenland, but it’s an important part for the United States,” Trump said during a bilateral meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The island was “surrounded by China ships and Russian ships,” Trump said, adding that Greenland “should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark.”
“We could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe,” he added.
—With files from Global News’ Uday Rana and The Associated Press
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