Bad luck seems to follow the Arctic Council around. Less than a year before U.S. President Donald Trump roiled Europe with escalating threats to seize Greenland, the semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, the Danes took over the rotating chairmanship of the intergovernmental forum, which seeks to promote northern cooperation among the world’s eight Arctic nations.
To make matters worse, Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt was forced to step down last month, after her party withdrew from Greenland’s coalition government over internal political turmoil. In vacating her post, Motzfeldt also had to abandon her role as chair of the Arctic Council. Motzfeldt had been the first Greenlandic politician to lead the council, helping to coordinate and direct its Far North activities. The Arctic Council told Foreign Policy that Greenland’s new foreign minister would take on the chair, but no one has been permanently assigned to the role yet, leaving the council without a clear leader.
Bad luck seems to follow the Arctic Council around. Less than a year before U.S. President Donald Trump roiled Europe with escalating threats to seize Greenland, the semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, the Danes took over the rotating chairmanship of the intergovernmental forum, which seeks to promote northern cooperation among the world’s eight Arctic nations.
To make matters worse, Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt was forced to step down last month, after her party withdrew from Greenland’s coalition government over internal political turmoil. In vacating her post, Motzfeldt also had to abandon her role as chair of the Arctic Council. Motzfeldt had been the first Greenlandic politician to lead the council, helping to coordinate and direct its Far North activities. The Arctic Council told Foreign Policy that Greenland’s new foreign minister would take on the chair, but no one has been permanently assigned to the role yet, leaving the council without a clear leader.
None of this bodes well for a body already facing deep internal tensions. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, Trump ruled out taking Greenland by military force and ditched the proposed tariffs that he had intended to use to exert economic pressure on Europe to strike a deal on the island. But the Danish government remains on edge. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has said that sovereignty remains a “red line,” and any attempt to annex Greenland would mean the end of NATO. A more immediate fallout could yet be the Arctic Council.
“The council will continue to push forward its agenda” of cooperation, said Klaus Dodds, a professor of geopolitics at Middlesex University London and co-author of the 2025 book Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic. “But it would be a brave soul who argued that the council is not mortally wounded.”
The Arctic Council has long focused on environmental protection, sustainable development, and uplifting Indigenous voices in th