The US president's Greenland aspirations are "escalating tensions," Troels Lund Poulsen has said

US President Donald Trump's repeated promises to annex Greenland are not appropriate for a close ally and overall are "escalating tensions," Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen has said.

"I think we'll go as far as we have to go. We need Greenland, and the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark," Trump told reporters on Wednesday.

"We have to have the land because it's not possible to properly defend a large section of this Earth - not just the US - without it. So we have to have it, and I think we will have it," he stated.

Speaking to Danish state broadcaster DR on Thursday, Poulsen condemned Trump's recent remarks as escalatory and disrespectful. Trump's rhetoric was becoming increasingly aggressive and amounted to a "hidden threat" against Denmark and its semi-autonomous territory.

"I think they are going too far - both in interfering in Greenland's internal affairs and in showing a lack of respect for its people's right to decide their future," Lund stated, responding to Trump's latest remarks on the island.

"These very powerful statements about a close ally do not suit the US president," he added.

Over the past few months, Trump repeatedly invoked the topic of Greenland, insisting that Washington needed to take control of the island to enhance its "national security."

The ramped-up rhetoric comes against the backdrop of a visit of a high-profile US delegation to the island led by Usha Vance, wife of US Vice President JD Vance, White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. JD Vance is expected to join his wife on Friday.

The visit has been criticized by both Danish and Greenlandic authorities, with the semi-autonomous territory's acting head of government, Mute Egede, who branded it a "provocation" and refused to meet the US delegation. Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has also condemned the trip, accusing the US of exerting "unacceptable pressure."

"I have to say that it is unacceptable pressure being placed on Greenland and Denmark in this situation. And it is pressure that we will resist," she told DR and TV2 broadcasters.

While the former Danish colony of some 57,000 has a strong pro-independence movement, a poll commissioned by the Sermitsiaq daily in late January suggested that 85% of Greenlanders opposed any incorporation into the US, while only 6% backed it.