Iceland summons US ambassador after Trump posts map showing Nordic nation as US territory

Donald Trump posted a map on Truth Social this week that redrew the political geography of the western hemisphere, painting Iceland, Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and a string of Caribbean nations in the colors and insignia of the United States. The image carried no caption, no explanation—just the reimagined territory, rendered as American. Within a day, Iceland's foreign minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir summoned the newly arrived US ambassador, Billy Long, to her office to make clear what her government thought of the gesture. "The position was clearly expressed that the post was completely inappropriate," the Icelandic foreign ministry said afterward.

This was not Iceland's first brush with Trump's territorial ambitions, though it was perhaps the most direct. Months earlier, while discussing his plans for Greenland, Trump had mistakenly named Iceland four times in succession—a slip that alarmed a nation of roughly 370,000 people sitting 290 kilometers from the US coast. The gaffe was serious enough that Iceland's left-leaning government accelerated a planned referendum on whether to pursue European Union membership, a move framed partly as a hedge against American unpredictability. Voters rejected the measure last month. More recently, Long himself—a former congressman from Missouri—had suggested that Iceland could become the 52nd US state, with him as governor. He later apologized. Thousands of Icelanders had signed a petition opposing his appointment as ambassador.

Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir addressed the map directly at a press conference, her language careful but pointed. "There's nothing funny or normal about making fun of the sovereignty of states, especially today when it's not a given," she said. The comment carried weight in a country that has relied on the United States for its security since 1944, when Iceland gained independence without establishing a military. A bilateral defense agreement signed in 1951 has anchored that relationship for seven decades. Now that relationship was being tested by the casual cartography of a sitting president.

Iceland was not alone in its objection. Denmark, which holds sovereignty over Greenland as an autonomous territory, condemned the map through Foreign Minister Lars Lökke, who called it "alarming and in many ways inappropriate" and noted that Trump still harbored "grandiose ideas." Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, speaking in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, reiterated what she said had been the consistent message from Greenland's government and people: "They do not want to be American." In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum posted on X that her country would "never be a colony or protectorate of any foreign country" and reaffirmed Mexico's status as "free, independent and sovereign."

The map was the latest in a series of moves signaling Trump's ambitions to expand American territory or influence. He has repeatedly spoken of making Canada the 51st state. He signed executive orders renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and Lake Ontario to Lake America. In March, he suggested the US could "take" Cuba. All of this, his administration has framed as necessary to bolster American national security and demonstrate growing US influence in the western hemisphere. The timing of the map post was notable: it came hours after the European Commission announced a 200 million euro investment in Greenland during a visit by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen—a move that seemed to underscore Europe's own interest in the Arctic island.

The US State Department and American embassies in Copenhagen and Reykjavik have not publicly commented on Trump's post. Ambassador Long did not respond to the Icelandic government's summons with any public statement. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, asked about the territorial claims, offered only that "the future of Greenland is a matter for Denmark and the people of Greenland." The diplomatic silence from Washington stood in contrast to the swift and pointed reactions from the nations depicted on Trump's map—a gap that itself conveyed something about the nature of the moment. Iceland, a NATO ally and a country whose entire security architecture rests on American commitment, now found itself in the position of having to formally object to being erased into the United States.