Iceland’s Breakdown of Relations with the United States

Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir is destroying Iceland’s relationship with its most important defense partner.

AUG. 15, 2025 Iceland’s Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir is advancing the European Union’s agenda in the North Atlantic. The United States disapproves and has placed Iceland under the category of nations to be monitored closely. Þorgerður Katrín is acting directly against U.S. security and defense interests in the strategically vital region known as the GIUK Gap, referring to Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom.

According to a news report in the Icelandic newspaper Morgunblaðið, Iceland is, in its efforts to negotiate trade issues, receiving icy silence from Washington. In international relations, this is a clear sign of disapproval.

The EU is launching a rapid offensive in the North Atlantic, aiming to incorporate Greenland, Iceland, and Norway into the bloc. Iceland is the easiest target, as the Reform Party (Viðreisn) and Foreign Minister Gunnarsdóttir are greased EU agents, and Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir, the greenhorn, is easily swayed.

Gunnarsdóttir does not hesitate to sacrifice relations with the United States, including the 1951 defense agreement, to please the EU.

There has been no discussion about the looming breakdown of Iceland’s relations with the United States due to the government’s EU policy. Trouble could hit with full force in the coming weeks when Iceland’s cooperation with the EU on security and defense matters is rammed through. The information is available, yet Iceland is sleepwalking toward disaster. When Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, visited Iceland a month ago at the invitation of Gunnarsdóttir and PM Frostadóttir, she stated the plan clearly and decisively. In a statement on the EU’s website, prepared by the EU Delegation to Iceland, von der Leyen is quoted as saying:

“Iceland plays a key role in NATO’s preparedness in the Arctic and North Atlantic. Iceland is a strong and reliable ally. […] I am pleased that negotiations have begun on Iceland’s participation in the EU’s security and defense cooperation. I am confident that these negotiations will be concluded within weeks or months. They will bring Iceland into the European Union’s security and defense cooperation.” (emphasis added)

Note how von der Leyen begins by mentioning NATO but then shifts to the EU’s security and defense cooperation. These are not the same thing. The United States is a part of NATO but does not participate in the EU’s security and defense cooperation, which is a purely EU initiative. The reason for the EU’s security and defense cooperation is the fear that the United States might abandon NATO. The U.S. has significantly reduced its military presence in Europe in recent years.

Instead of the U.S. outer security and defense line lying in Europe, as it did during the Cold War, it will now run through the GIUK Gap in the North Atlantic—Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom—with a connection to Norway/Svalbard.

The EU’s positioning in the North Atlantic will sooner or later lead to conflict with the United States. Iceland will become a pawn in the great power interests. The EU’s Arctic strategy was published this summer by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in a report titled EU Expansion to the North in Sight? Initiative in Uncertain Times. Random Notes discussed the document, which followed von der Leyen’s policy speech:

“Iceland is considered a key state to bring Greenland and Norway into the bloc. It is noted that Iceland’s current government is enthusiastic about EU membership. It is suggested that the EU make Iceland an offer on fisheries ‘that cannot be refused.’ The phrasing is straight out of mafia literature—implying that rejecting the godfather’s offer is a death sentence. The EU has various ways to pressure Icelandic interests, not least through the EEA Agreement.”

Von der Leyen’s visit to Iceland last week shows that the EU is deadly serious about implementing its plan to annex two micro-nations, Greenland and Iceland. Next on the menu is the small state of Norway. This would give the EU significant influence in the North Atlantic, making it a great power there.

Sooner rather than later, the United States will wake up to a bad dream. The EU intends, through a lightning offensive, to seize Greenland and Iceland—an inseparable pair in North Atlantic defense and security matters. Washington will not look kindly on Iceland paving the way for the EU into the U.S.’s security and defense zone.”

There has been virtually no discussion in Iceland about the direction of Foreign Minister Gunnarsdóttir and PM Frostadóttir’s dangerous and treacherous foreign policy. People must get their bearings quickly. A political storm is brewing on two fronts—domestically and in relations with foreign powers. The conflicts over NATO and the defense force following Iceland’s founding as a republic were of the same nature: a divided nation and foreign policy in turmoil. Further back in history lies the Age of the Sturlungs—the bloodiest and most violent period in Icelandic history whose conflicts led to the end of the Commonwealth as Iceland lost its independence and became a vassal state of Norway. The lessons are there to be heeded.