Denmark presses Hill to avoid narrow Greenland vote

Danish officials told U.S. lawmakers this week to avoid a war powers vote on Greenland unless it could pass overwhelmingly, warning that a narrow or partisan outcome could do more harm than good.

Danish representatives delivered their message to lawmakers from both parties in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill earlier this week, according to three people familiar with the discussions who were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

A weak showing that included little Republican support, the Danes believe, could undercut Copenhagen’s position and bolster President Donald Trump’s drive to acquire the Danish territory through any means possible.

The message was relayed in a meeting Wednesday involving Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, as well as Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Angus King (I-Maine) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.).

Gallego is spearheading the yet-to-be-introduced Greenland war powers legislation, which is aimed at barring Trump from using military force against the Danish territory without congressional approval. The Wednesday meeting was aimed at reassuring Danish and Greenlandic officials — who have expressed repeated alarm over Trump’s rhetoric — that they have support in Congress.

Following the meeting, Gallego signaled that a vote on the resolution was not imminent.

“I'm going to keep it on the shelf as an option, should we ever need it,” Gallego said. “But I've offered that language, and we'll make sure to have it handy in case it rises to the moment.” The Danish Embassy declined to comment. Rasmussen and Motzfeldt were part of a delegation whose meeting, also on Wednesday, with Trump administration officials failed to resolve the impasse.

But Democrats are expected to roll out several additional war powers resolutions, including on Greenland, as they force Republicans to go on the record over Trump’s foreign policy decisions, which have repeatedly left Capitol Hill flat-footed.

“At a minimum, we're forcing a vote that may get the administration to change its course, we're chewing up Senate floor time and highlighting the fact that the president is engaged in external adventurism, rather than solving everyday problems that Americans wanted him to solve,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said about the forthcoming efforts.

And while he acknowledged that it was unlikely they would get a veto-proof number of GOP senators to join most of those war powers resolutions, he added: “We might on Greenland.”

But while Trump’s refusal to rule out military action has sparked widespread heartburn among Republicans, with even top allies warning he doesn’t have support on Capitol Hill for such a step, there has not been a rush of GOP support for a Greenland war powers resolution.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) predicted it would easily pass if an invasion was imminent, but he wouldn’t support one yet. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), one of the five Republicans who initially supported a Venezuela war powers resolution, also said that at this point he wasn’t on board. Murkowski, who was in Copenhagen on Friday as part of a bicameral, bipartisan congressional delegation, has said she would support a war powers resolution.