Standing up to Trump: Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen

Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark's foreign minister, recently reaffirmed his offer to deepen cooperation with Washington to strengthen security in Greenland. "We do not consider a military annexation as anything which likely could happen," Rasmussen told journalists in the city of Aarhus, as Copenhagen assumed a greater role in the EU's politics with the Council presidency. "Having said that, it's not that we consider this case solved. You should take Trump seriously, but not necessarily literally… We take it very, very seriously."

In April, Frederiksen unleashed the bombast. Taking to social media, she posted in English and directly addressed the American people. "When we are met by pressure and by threats from our closest ally, we don't give in," she wrote. Ever since, her directness has only intensified. "From the beginning of this discussion, I think that President Trump is serious: they want Greenland," she told British Vogue. "But we are serious as well. And we will not step down."

A reliable partner

It was "difficult for us as Danes to hear these words coming from the US," she said. "Globally we are seen in many parts of the world as a very reliable partner, because there is a very close link between what we say and what we do. And when it comes to the US, we have been one of its closest allies since the end of the Second World War. So, when Vice President Vance says Denmark is a 'bad ally', you say 'what, are you saying that about us?'"

Frederiksen's background is working-class, spending her childhood in Jutland, the peninsula that forms the northernmost part of the country. She came from a political family, her father, grandfather, and great grandfather having been trade unionists. She spent a year in Africa aged 18, returned to study, then landed a job for the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions, winning her first election to the national parliament in 2001, aged just 24.

"I quit university," she told Vogue. "We had quite a tough female politician in my party, and one day she asked me, 'Are you totally out of your mind? You don't have a degree in anything! You have to finish.'" At the time, Frederiksen already had one young child. Despite that, and despite the responsibility of an elected seat at such a young age, she went back to university to do a master's degree in African Studies, while pregnant with her second.

Taking on the right

Since her election as Prime Minister in 2019, many have noted that her stance on migration has swung drastically to the right. Under Frederiksen's leadership, Denmark's immigration policies have become so strict that the country last year granted only 860 asylum requests, one of its lowest on record. Her party, the Social Democrats, has called for a cap on "non-Western immigrants," for "repatriation" instead of integration, and for all immigrants to be forced to work 37 hours a week in exchange for benefits.

She argues that mass migration is being paid by people living in difficult circumstances already. "Protecting ordinary people's lives is one of my primary goals," she has said. "At least in a Danish frame, that can't coexist with the problems that are caused by migration. That's the starting point." This position has taken the wind out of Denmark's far-right movements. Her Social Democrats are one of Europe's only centre-left parties to survive the surge in right-wing populism.

This trend-bucking is one of the many reasons why there is now great interest in how Frederiksen will fare as she assumes the EU Council presidency, at a time when Ukraine's war with Russia threatens the whole bloc. "I'm really glad that it's right now we have the presidency because it's really a defining moment for Europe," she has said. "I say this to my party and my government all the time."

She is under no illusions about the scale of the threat she faces. "It's not only a question about Greenland. If we accept that the big power can bully other countries, then it's game over for all democracies. This is one of these moments. There is one in every generation when you have to choose between right and wrong."