Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the talks are “business as usual” rather than a response to recent threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to take over Greenland.

Trump said Friday that he would like to make a deal to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous region of NATO ally Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from taking it over.

“We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not,” Trump said Friday.

Greenland, with a population of around 57,000, is defended by Denmark, whose military is dwarfed by that of the U.S., which has a military base on the island. Denmark’s prime minister has warned that a takeover would threaten NATO.

The U.K. agrees with Trump that Russia and China are increasingly becoming more competitive in the Arctic Circle, Alexander said.

“Whilst we haven’t seen the appalling consequences in that part of the world that we’ve seen in Ukraine, it is really important that we do everything that we can with all of our NATO allies to ensure that we have an effective deterrent in that part of the globe against (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” Alexander told the BBC.

Britain’s former ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson, who was sacked last year because of his friendship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, said he did not think Trump would take Greenland by force.

“He’s not a fool,” Mandelson said. “We are all going to have to wake up to the reality that the Arctic needs securing against China and Russia. And if you ask me who is going to lead in that effort to secure, we all know, don’t we, that it’s going to be the United States.”

Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, suggested Britain offer to deploy troops to Greenland in a joint command with Denmark.

“If Trump is serious about security, he’d agree to participate and drop his outrageous threats,” Davey said. “Tearing the NATO alliance apart would only play into the hands of Putin.”

It’s unclear how remaining NATO members would respond if the U.S. decided to forcibly take control of the island or if they would come to Denmark’s aid.

“We’re sending more officers today and tomorrow,” Noem said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures when asked about the government’s response. “They’ll arrive — there’ll be hundreds more, in order to allow our ICE and our Border Patrol individuals that are working in Minneapolis to do so safely.”

Protests erupted in Minneapolis after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Renée Nicole Good during a tense confrontation on Jan. 7. Thousands marched to the shooting site on Saturday.

Read More: Thousands March to Shooting Site in Minneapolis, Protesting ICE

Noem renewed warnings by senior administration officials that people who try to hamper federal law enforcement risk arrest and criminal prosecution.

“If they impede our operations, that’s a crime and we will hold them accountable to those consequences,” she said.

Good’s fatal shooting has sparked a bitter national debate over whether the officer was justified in using deadly force. The Trump administration and other supporters of the ICE agent argue he acted in self-defense as Good’s SUV moved forward. Noem has said he followed his training.

Critics, including Minnesota officials, law-enforcement experts and civil rights advocates, point to video footage and witness accounts that didn’t show an imminent threat, calling the shooting unjustified.

With each side broadly blaming the other for the circumstances that led to the woman’s death, state and federal officials on Sunday called for lowering the political temperature.

“Of course I bear responsibility to bring down the temperature,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said on NBC’s Meet the Press. Yet, he said, “the way that these institutions are being utilized right now by the Trump administration is wrong, and to be clear, is unconstitutional.”

“This was clearly a law enforcement action, where the officer acted on his training and defended himself and his life and his fellow colleagues,” Noem said on CNN’s State of the Union. Good’s death shows “why we need our leaders to turn down their rhetoric,” she said, referring to local leaders in Minnesota.

On Friday evening, hundreds of protesters spent hours outside a local hotel in downtown Minneapolis believed to be housing federal agents as part of a social-media-driven campaign dubbed “No Sleep for ICE.”  Armed with musical instruments, air horns and other noisemakers, demonstrators chanted and played music as passing cars honked horns and shouted at ICE to leave the city. 

But the Supreme Court, which is due to rule soon on the administration’s global tariffs, could provide relief and help revive job growth, he said in a social media post on Sunday.

That comes after the latest monthly jobs report showed payrolls rose by 50,000 in December, while the unemployment rate edged down to 4.4%. For all of 2025, employers added just 584,000 jobs, a sharp decline from 2 million jobs in 2024 and the weakest year outside of a recession since the early 2000s.

Since Trump shocked global markets with his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April, there has been no job growth, Zandi said, adding that subsequent revisions will likely show net declines.

“This reflects the direct effects of the tariffs on manufacturing, transportation and distribution, and ag-related businesses, which are steadily losing jobs, as well as the indirect uncertainty hit to hiring by most other businesses,” he explained.

Indeed, trade-exposed industries suffered steep losses last year. The manufacturing sector, for example, has hemorrhaged 70,000 jobs since April. Tens of thousands have also been lost in mining and logging as well as warehousing.

Meanwhile, the health care and social services are among the few industries that are hiring steadily. Without those two sectors, the U.S. economy would have seen payrolls drop for the year.

“Other factors are certainly at play, including highly restrictive immigration policies, DOGE cuts, and artificial intelligence; however, the global trade war’s fingerprints are all over the ailing job market,” Zandi added. “Thus, the fastest way to boost the job market would be for the Supreme Court to declare the reciprocal tariffs unlawful and for lawmakers to let them become a thing of the past.”

Justices are expected to hand down a decision any day now on Trump’s ability to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

That law has been used for the bulk of Trump’s trade war, including the so-called reciprocal tariffs and fentanyl-related duties. The administration has also leveraged the IEEPA tariffs to secure trade deals with the European Union, Japan, South Korea and others.

But if the Supreme Court rules against Trump, that won’t put an end to his tariff regime. Other levies are based on separate laws and aren’t under consideration at the high court.

New tariffs could also be imposed outside IEEPA, though those would take longer to roll out with some offering only shorter periods to tax imports.

While administration officials have expressed confidence that they have alternate ways to enact tariffs, Trump may not immediately jump at the chance.

As the affordability crisis has become top of mind for lawmakers, Trump has rolled back some duties on coffee, pasta and other staples, while delaying tariffs on furniture.