US Politics
Danish veterans protest at US embassy over Trump’s Greenland threats
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Hundreds of Danish veterans, many of whom served alongside American forces, staged a silent protest on Saturday outside the US Embassy in Copenhagen.
The demonstration was a direct response to the Trump administration’s suggestions of acquiring Greenland and what they perceive as a dismissal of their combat contributions.
Earlier in January, President Donald Trump claimed that Nato soldiers avoided the front line in the Middle East, and he was not sure that the alliance would “be there if we ever needed them”.
He told Fox News: “They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan … and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
“Denmark has always stood side by side with the USA — and we have showed up in the world’s crisis zones when the USA has asked us to,” Danish Veterans & Veteran Support said.
“We feel let down and ridiculed by the Trump administration, which is deliberately disregarding Denmark’s combat side by side with the USA.”
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The group added: “Words cannot describe how much it hurts us that Denmark’s contributions and sacrifices in the fight for democracy, peace and freedom are being forgotten in the White House.”
The veterans initially gathered at a monument honouring fallen Danish service members before marching to the nearby US Embassy.
There, they observed five minutes of silence, dedicating one minute to each branch of Denmark’s armed forces: the army, air force, navy, emergency management agency, and police.
Danish veterans are furious at how the White House rhetoric disregards the right to self-determination of Greenland, a territory of Nato ally Denmark.
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They also strongly object to Trump’s claim that Denmark is incapable of protecting the West’s security interests in the Arctic.
Forty-four Danish soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, the highest per capita death toll among coalition forces. Eight more died in Iraq.
Tensions were further inflamed on Tuesday when 44 Danish flags — one for every Danish soldier killed in Afghanistan — that had been placed in front of the embassy were removed by embassy staff.
The State Department later said that, as a general rule, guard staff remove items left behind following demonstrations and other “legitimate exercises of free speech”. The flags were returned to those who left them, it said.