Support comes after presidential aide Stephen Miller says ‘no one will fight US militarily over future of Greenland’

European leaders have dramatically rallied together in support of Denmark and Greenland after one of Donald Trump’s leading aides suggested the US may be willing to seize control of the Arctic territory by force.

Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, declared that Greenland – a semi-autonomous territory of the kingdom of Denmark – “belongs to its people”, in a rare European rebuke to the White House.

Mette Frederiksen criticises Donald Trump’s ‘unacceptable pressure’ as Greenland counterpart condemns ‘fantasies’

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An attack by the United States on a Nato ally would mean the end of both the military alliance and “post-second world war security”, Denmark’s leader has warned, after Donald Trump threatened again to take over Greenland.

Fresh from his military operation in Venezuela, the US president said on Sunday the US needed Greenland “very badly” – renewing fears of a US invasion of the largely autonomous island, which is a former Danish colony and remains part of the Danish kingdom. Greenland’s foreign and security policy continues to be controlled by Copenhagen.