A man walks near the church in Nuuk, Greenland, on Wednesday, January 14, 2026. Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
Three-quarters of Americans say they oppose the United States attempt to take control of Greenland, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, indicating that President Donald Trump’s push to expand America’s territory faces stiff headwinds with the public.
The survey finds just 25% of Americans favor the US attempting to take control of the Danish territory. Even the president’s partisans are about evenly divided, with 50% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents saying they support it and 50% opposed. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are deeply against the move, with 94% opposed overall, including 80% who say they strongly oppose it. About 8 in 10 independents who don’t lean toward either party are also opposed.
Trump said Wednesday on his social media website Truth Social that “anything less” than US control of Greenland is “unacceptable.” The message came ahead of a meeting at the White House between Danish officials, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio that appeared to do little to bring the two sides any closer to an agreement.
The poll finds little appetite for a broader policy of US expansionism, even as Trump extols the military capture of Venezuela’s Nicolas Máduro – declaring afterward that the US would now “run” the country – and as he threatens Iran’s leadership over their violent crackdown on street protests.
Nearly six in ten Americans are concerned that Trump has gone too far in trying to expand America’s power over other countries. Only a third think his efforts in that regard have been about right. And most (55%) say he has already gone too far in using the US military to achieve his goals. A growing share says Trump’s foreign policy decisions this term have hurt America’s standing in the world: 57% say so now, up from 53% last summer.
CNN
