• Ritzau, Scanpix

Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen's comments came a day before a key meeting in Washington between foreign ministers of the semi-autonomous Danish territory and Denmark and top U.S. officials, at a time of increased tensions between the allies over the stepped-up U.S. rhetoric.

NUUK, Greenland — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that anything less than U.S. control of Greenland is unacceptable, hours before Vice President JD Vance was to host Danish and Greenlandic officials for talks.

In a post on his social media site, Trump reiterated his argument that the U.S. “needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security.” He added that “NATO should be leading the way for us to get it” and that otherwise, Russia or China would.

“NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES,” Trump wrote. “Anything less than that is unacceptable.”

People walk along a street in downtown Nuuk, Greenland, on Jan. 13.

Greenland is at the center of a geopolitical storm as Trump is insisting he wants to own the island — and the residents of its capital, Nuuk, say it is not for sale. The White House has not ruled out taking the Arctic island by force.

Vance is to meet Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the island, which is a semiautonomous territory of the United States’ NATO ally Denmark.

Ahead of the meeting, France’s foreign minister denounced what he described as U.S. “blackmail” over Greenland in the latest sign of irritation among America's allies.

Along the narrow, snow-covered main street in Nuuk, international journalists and camera crews have been stopping passersby every few feet, asking them for their thoughts on a crisis which Denmark’s prime minister has warned could potentially trigger the end of NATO.

Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told The Associated Press in Nuuk that she hoped American officials would get the message to “back off."

Prime Minister of Greenland Jens-Frederik Nielsen delivers a speech Oct. 8 at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France.

Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a news conference in the Danish capital Copenhagen on Tuesday that, "if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU.”

Asked later Tuesday about Nielsen's comments, Trump replied: “I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know anything about him. But, that’s going to be a big problem for him.”

Greenland is strategically important because as climate change causes the ice to melt, it opens up the possibility of shorter trade routes to Asia. That also could make it easier to extract and transport untapped deposits of critical minerals, which are needed for computers and phones.

Trump also said he wants the island to expand America’s security and has cited what he says is the threat from Russian and Chinese ships as a reason to control it.

But both experts and Greenlanders question that claim.

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Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.