Washington DC - President Donald Trump is considering military options to seize control of Greenland, the White House said Tuesday, upping tensions that could destroy the NATO alliance.

Trump has stepped up his designs on the mineral-rich, self-governing Danish territory in the arctic since the US carried out a coup in Venezuela and abducted its president, Nicolas Maduro, last weekend.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that "acquiring Greenland is a national security priority" for Trump, supposedly to "deter" US adversaries like Russia and China.

"The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the US military is always an option at the commander in chief's disposal," she said in a statement to AFP.

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The Wall Street Journal reported Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers that Trump's preferred option is to buy Greenland from Denmark, adding the threats did not signal an imminent invasion.

Denmark has warned any move to take Greenland by force would mean "everything would stop," including NATO and 80 years of close transatlantic security links.

Any US military action against Greenland would effectively collapse NATO, since the alliance's Article Five pledges that member states will defend any of their number that come under attack.

Greenland's Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt wrote on social media that they'd sought a meeting with Rubio throughout 2025 but "it has so far not been possible."

Denmark's Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said meeting Rubio should "clear up certain misunderstandings."

And Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen insisted that the island was not for sale, and only its 57,000 people should decide its future.

Allies have rallied around Denmark and Greenland while simultaneously trying to tiptoe around Trump.

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain joined Denmark in a statement on Tuesday saying they would defend the "universal principles" of "sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders" – despite their muted response to the violation of these principles in Venezuela.

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer both sought to play down the row as they attended Ukraine peace talks in Paris alongside Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

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"I cannot imagine a scenario in which the United States of America would be placed in a position to violate Danish sovereignty," Macron said.

The US has 150 military personnel stationed at the Pituffik Space Base in Greenland.

Greenland residents have rejected Trump's repeated threats.

"This is not something we appreciate," Christian Keldsen, director of the Greenland Business Assocation, told AFP in the capital Nuuk. "It is not acceptable in the civilized world."

Trump has been floating the idea of annexing Greenland since his first term.

Still steaming over Trump's blatant violation of international law in Venezuela, Democrats spoke out against his threats against Greenland on Tuesday.

Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, vowed to introduce a resolution "to block Trump from invading Greenland," saying the 79-year-old Republican simply "wants a giant island with his name on it. He wouldn't think twice about putting our troops in danger if it makes him feel big and strong."

Some Republicans also pushed back against Trump's military-backed expansionism.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Tuesday night that he didn't think it was "appropriate" for Washington to take military action on Greenland, Politico reported.

And Kansas Senator Jerry Moran, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told HuffPost "it's none of our business" and warned that the move would lead to "the demise of NATO."

Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska put it even more bluntly in a post on X: "This is really dumb. Greenland and Denmark are our allies."