Trump's new map swallows Greenland and Iceland, stirring alarm across the North Atlantic

A map has done what months of rhetoric could not, and put the North Atlantic on edge. Over the long US holiday weekend, President Donald Trump posted an image on Truth Social showing the United States sprawling across all of North America and extending to Greenland and Iceland, the whole expanse coloured in the stars and stripes, according to a report by news agency AP.

The post came with no explanation attached.

None was really needed. It landed against the backdrop of Trump's earlier talk of making Canada the 51st state and his repeated musings about taking over Greenland, the self-governing territory of Denmark. The reaction from across the Atlantic was swift.


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"It's disturbing and, in many ways, completely inappropriate," Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told national broadcaster DR on Tuesday. "It's obviously a sign that the US president still harbours some kind of maximalist vision in his own mind. We need to rein that in."

In Reykjavik, Iceland's Foreign and Defence Secretary Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir summoned US Ambassador Billy Long to a meeting, national broadcaster RUV reported.

Why the Arctic is jumpy

The Arctic states have been uneasy since Trump escalated his rhetoric at the start of the year about US control of Greenland. Iceland, just 180 miles (290 km) away, took particular notice when Trump mistakenly named their country four times while speaking about his designs on Greenland, the AP report said.

Iceland is a NATO member, but the slip carried consequences. Its left-leaning coalition government moved up a referendum, originally planned for next year, on whether the country should resume long-stalled negotiations to join the European Union. The vote was promoted in part as a way to strengthen ties with Europe and insulate Iceland from geopolitical instability. Voters rejected the measure on August 30.

Long, the newly arrived ambassador, has his own history with the issue. Thousands of Icelanders signed a petition urging the prime minister to reject his appointment after he joked earlier this year about Iceland becoming the 52nd US state, with himself as governor. Long apologised and took up his post in Reykjavik last month.

Canada and a lake renamed

Canada has borne the brunt of Trump's cartographic ambitions. Alongside frequent talk of it becoming a US state, he launched a trade war with Ottawa and recently renamed Lake Ontario as "Lake America."

The Labour Day weekend brought more of the same. Besides the global map, Trump also suggested renaming the state of New Mexico as "New America."

(With inputs from AP)