The U.S. ambassador to Iceland, Billy Long, was summoned by the country’s officials for a meeting on Monday just hours after President Donald Trump posted an image to Truth Social of the Arctic nation blanketed in the American flag.
Trump posted a stylized map of North and Central American nations — including Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Greenland and Iceland — covered in the stars and stripes during a posting spree to Truth Social on Sunday, an apparent indication of his interest in taking control of those countries. Trump also shared a bizarre series of AI-generated images of “Iran’s Navy” on the ocean floor, the moon and the Strait of Hormuz as American territories and New Mexico renamed “New America.”
The posts caught the attention of Icelandic officials, who have tangled with the Trump administration since the president returned to office last year.
“It was made clear to him in the meeting that the post was entirely unacceptable,” Iceland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir told broadcaster RÚV of her meeting with Long.
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“If this is supposed to be a joke, then it is a bad joke,” she added at a press conference Tuesday, according to Arctic Today.
This isn’t the first time that Long has faced scrutiny over U.S. annexation threats. Long apologized before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February over a joke he made, first reported by Politico, to former House colleagues calling Iceland the “52nd state” and saying he’d serve as its governor.
“It was totally inappropriate,” Long told senators at the time. “I just hope that the people in Iceland will give me a second chance to make a first impression.”
Icelanders launched a petition earlier this year calling for Gunnarsdóttir to oust Long, with the effort garnering nearly 5,500 signatures.
Long joins a group of other Trump-tapped ambassadors who have faced removal campaigns and diplomatic rebukes.
Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, currently faces a removal petition that has accumulated nearly 270,000 signatures — an outgrowth of the escalating U.S.-Canada trade war.
Bill White, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, has been summoned by the country’s officials twice this year — most recently to answer for an incendiary social media post in which he mocked the country’s health minister.
Trump’s post of an American flag-covered map has renewed fears in the region of a potential U.S. annexation of Iceland’s close neighbor, Greenland.
Shortly after the start of his second term, Trump pushed for the U.S. to take control of Greenland. Last January, the president even said that conversations with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, had generated “the framework of a future deal” on Greenland.
Trump maintains that Greenland, which is a Danish territory, is vital for U.S. national security, but the push has landed with a thud in Europe — particularly in Denmark, which launched massive protests in response to the president’s push for control in the Arctic.
Iceland also joined Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in a joint statement in January defending Greenland from Trump’s annexation threats.
“We collectively reiterate that matters concerning Denmark and Greenland are for Denmark and Greenland to decide alone,” the foreign ministers of each country wrote.
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