The claim was that
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio would meet with
Danish officials “next week,” a statement made on January 7, 2026, during remarks at the State Department. The context was intensifying tension over President Trump’s renewed push to acquire
Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory.
In the official State Department transcript from January 7, Rubio explicitly responded to a question about
Denmark and Greenland by saying, “I’ll be meeting with them next week,” referring to Danish counterparts. This promise was echoed in contemporaneous coverage, where he was reported as planning to meet Danish officials the following week to discuss Greenland.
On January 14, 2026, Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland’s foreign affairs minister Vivian Motzfeldt met at
the White House with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and other officials. Multiple reputable outlets describe this as a closed-door meeting requested by the Danes and Greenlanders specifically to discuss the U.S. push to control Greenland.
Reports after the meeting consistently state that Rasmussen and Motzfeldt met with Rubio and Vance that day, confirming that the planned high-level talks between
Rubio and Danish officials did in fact occur. The timing—seven days after Rubio’s January 7 remarks—falls squarely within the “next week” window implied by his original statement.
Substantively, the meeting did not resolve the dispute: Danish and Greenlandic leaders emphasized a “fundamental disagreement” with U.S. aims and insisted Greenland’s sovereignty must be respected, while the U.S. maintained its strategic interest. However, the claim being evaluated concerned only whether Rubio would meet with Danish officials, and that meeting clearly took place, so the promise is fulfilled even though the broader policy conflict remains unresolved.