Iceland’s PM says Trump’s Greenland threats were a ‘big shock’
Secretary of State Marco Rubio brought President Trump’s Arctic ambitions to Iceland on Tuesday, meeting with Icelandic officials in Reykjavik to discuss expanded security cooperation as the United States broadens its military reach across the region.
In the meetings, Rubio said the administration was open to expanding cooperation, citing Iceland’s infrastructure, technology and surveillance capabilities. “There’s interest in doing more together,” Rubio said, praising Iceland for allowing “the U.S. military to project power using your land, your air, your sea, giving us a critical outpost for monitoring clandestine behavior and deterring our adversaries.”
The visit builds on a deal struck last month over Greenland that fell short of Trump’s demand for the U.S. to take control of the self-governing Danish territory. The accord nonetheless paved the way for a larger U.S. military presence, which would further elevate the strategic importance of neighboring Iceland. The country has airfields, ports and surveillance infrastructure that provide a natural staging ground for operations in Greenland and across the North Atlantic.
“Iceland’s contribution is being a base, our actual country. Literally,” Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last month. “A lot of the logistics that go to Greenland actually go through Iceland, just because of the geography. So there might be some increase in services in that area, and you know we’re going to be open to that,” she said.
Rubio’s visit — part of a three-day tour of NATO allies that includes Greece and Portugal — comes as the U.S. turns military attention back to the Arctic after Washington largely deprioritized the region following the Cold War. Iceland became a founding member of NATO despite having no standing military, underscoring the importance of its strategic location. The U.S. ended its permanent military presence in Iceland in 2006 as it shifted forces elsewhere, but the island’s location on a strategic maritime corridor has become increasingly important as the U.S. and NATO partners aim to monitor Russian submarine activity and protect undersea infrastructure.
On Tuesday, Rubio toured a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon at Keflavik Air Base — one of the maritime patrol aircraft that rotate through Iceland to hunt and track submarines across the North Atlantic. He also re-created a famous photo with his Icelandic counterpart at Höfði House, the site of the landmark 1986 summit between former President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
“The reality of it is the world has changed over the last 20 years,” Rubio said. “Our focus has changed. There’s a lot of focus on the Arctic.”
The visit nevertheless follows months of strain in U.S.-Iceland relations. Trump’s threats to take control of Greenland “whether they like it or not” rattled Iceland next door. Thousands of people signed a petition urging Iceland to reject Trump’s pick for ambassador, Billy Long, after he reportedly joked that Iceland would become America’s “52nd state” and that he would become the governor. Long later apologized for the comments.
A Gallup poll last year found nearly three-quarters of Icelanders viewed U.S. interest in Greenland and the Arctic as a threat. In August, Justice Minister Þorbjörg Sigríður Gunnlaugsdóttir wrote that Iceland and its Nordic neighbors had to confront the fact that “a threat comes from the United States.”
Tensions escalated again last month when Iceland’s government summoned Long after Trump posted an image of the island covered by the U.S. flag and labeled the “United States of America.” Iceland’s prime minister called the post an “insult” and “ridiculous.”
On Tuesday, Rubio sought to smooth over such tensions, stressing that Washington wouldn’t expand its military activities in Iceland without the country’s cooperation and emphasizing U.S. respect for its sovereignty. “We are looking forward, not backwards,” Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrín Gunnarsdóttir said.
The episode has nevertheless left a mark on U.S. relations with the region. Trump’s threats were a “big shock” and it will take some time to rebuild trust, Frostadóttir, the prime minister, said, but she called the renewed U.S. focus on the Arctic a “silver lining.”
“We’ve been trying to get people’s eyes up north for a really long time,” Frostadóttir told The Wall Street Journal. “Let’s not be naive about Russia, about China, about everything that’s going on.”
The Trump administration’s push to devote more military resources to the Arctic is colliding with competing demands elsewhere. A NATO exercise in Iceland last month underscored the strain: while U.S. personnel participated in Northern Viking, the American military presence was smaller than in previous exercises. Rubio attributed the reduced presence to competing demands, including protecting shipping lanes amid the Iran war. “Sometimes they’re not available for exercises,” he said, adding that the absence wasn’t an “enduring decision.”