Trump’s claim of Chinese and Russian ships near Greenland ‘not supported by facts’

South China Morning Post · Feb 18, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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A former president of Iceland has rejected US President Donald Trump’s claim that nearby Greenland was surrounded by Chinese and Russian vessels, saying it was “not supported by facts”.In an interview on the sidelines of last weekend’s Munich Security Conference, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, who was Iceland’s president from 1996 to 2016, said there were “no Russian and Chinese ships in the waters of Greenland”.Trump said last month that the US “needed Greenland” – a Danish territory – “from the standpoint of national security” because “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place” and “Denmark is not going to be able to do it”.But Grimsson, who is chairman of the Arctic Circle – a non-government organisation network focused on international dialogue and cooperation about the future of the Arctic – said there was no evidence for Trump’s claim.He did, however, note that there was evidence of both Russian and Chinese ships and aircraft off the coast of Alaska and the airspace over it, meaning they were closer to the “American part of the Arctic, but not the Greenland part of the Arctic”.04:56What are Trump’s motivations for wanting the US to take over Greenland?What are Trump’s motivations for wanting the US to take over Greenland?Grimsson said it went “without saying” that the Arctic had military importance, given it was the “neighbourhood that links North America, China, and also Russia”.