Iceland summons U.S. ambassador over Trump map
Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir summoned U.S. Ambassador Billy Long to a meeting on Monday evening after President Donald J. Trump posted a map showing Iceland covered by the American flag.
In a written response to RÚV, the Foreign Ministry said it had made clear at the meeting that it regarded the post as entirely inappropriate.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday morning at a press conference where the governing parties set out their priorities for the parliamentary session, Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir said the undertone of the post was absurd, and that it was an insult to Icelanders, Canadians and Greenlanders. There was nothing funny or normal about joking about the sovereignty of states, she said, particularly now, when sovereignty could not be taken for granted.
Gunnarsdóttir said there had been reason to summon the ambassador and to deliver a clear message that the post was completely unacceptable.
“I have repeatedly been told from within the U.S. administration that we should perhaps not take the current U.S. president literally, but that we should take him seriously,” she said. “That is exactly what we are doing.”
She said Iceland was a sovereign, independent state responsible for its own fate, and that no one else could handle or bargain with its independence. She added that Iceland would continue to stand with Greenland and would not speak quietly on the matter, while saying she looked forward to continued cooperation with Washington on trade and defense.
“This is not a joke in my view, and if it is meant to be a joke, then it is a bad joke,” she said.
Frostadóttir said Iceland had not otherwise encountered problems in its dealings with the United States.
Long formally took up his post in Reykjavík last month. In January, while still a member of the House of Representatives, he joked on the floor about making Iceland the 52nd state with himself as governor, and apologized for the remark to Arctic Today two days later.
Trump published the map to his Truth Social account on Monday without accompanying text or explanation. It showed the United States, Canada, Central America, the Caribbean, Greenland and Iceland under the Stars and Stripes.
RÚV noted that the post came hours after the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced in Nuuk an additional €200 million in investment in Greenland over the next two years, alongside an agreement signed by Greenland, Denmark and the EU on improved satellite connectivity. The funding is directed at clean energy, critical minerals and connectivity.
