Denmark is ‘irrelevant’, says Scott Bessent

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Denmark was “irrelevant” and that he was not concerned about Europe pulling out of the U.S. government bond market, amid fears of U.S. President Donald Trump annexing Greenland and imposing new tariffs.

“Denmark’s investment in U.S. Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant,” Bessent told journalists in Davos on Wednesday morning. “They’ve been selling treasuries for years. I am not concerned at all.”

Bessent was responding to chatter that European capitals might try to put pressure on the U.S. government by selling its bonds, driving up its borrowing costs. One Danish pension fund, AkademikerPension, said Tuesday it had decided to divest its holdings of U.S. treasuries, citing Trump’s Greenland threats as one of various factors suggesting that the U.S. is no longer a top-quality credit.

The issue of divestment had been raised in a weekend note to clients by Deutsche Bank’s chief foreign exchange strategist George Saravelos. But Bessent said he had received a call from Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Christian Sewing to say that Saravelos’ arguments didn’t represent the bank’s views.

Bessent said the issue was amplified by "the fake news media."

U.S. bond and stock markets had sold off sharply on Tuesday in response to growing concerns that the U.S.-Europe rift over Greenland could reignite the trade war that was feared in 2025, but which failed to materialize.

Bessent also noted that the selloff had been aggravated by volatility in the Japanese bond market, where fears about the country’s long-term ability to pay its debt flared up again.

“I think it is very difficult to disaggregate any of the noise around Greenland,” Bessent said, adding that his Japanese counterpart had reassured him that Tokyo would act to keep its bond market stable.

Earlier in the press conference, Bessent had repeated his criticism of European leaders’ “inflammatory” commentary on the Greenland dispute and blasted European countries’ announcement that they will deploy military personnel to Greenland.

“For those countries to activate their troops, I’m not sure what signal that is supposed to send,” he said. “It’s pretty quixotic.”

Bessent’s comments landed a few hours before a highly anticipated speech by Trump. The U.S. president's arrival in Davos was delayed about three hours due to technical issues with Air Force One.