Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that he planned to discuss a U.S. acquisition of Greenland with Danish officials next week, as the White House again asserted that President Donald Trump’s preference would be to acquire the territory through a negotiation.

The U.S. would even consider purchasing the island.

But press secretary Karoline Leavitt held out the possibility of a military takeover should diplomatic efforts fail and likened Trump’s approach to how he dealt with Iran and Venezuela, both of which he opted to attack after negotiations faltered.

“Look at Venezuela. He tried ardently to strike a good deal with Nicolás Maduro. And he told him, ‘I will use the United States military if you do not take such a deal and you will not like it.’ And look at what happened,” Leavitt said. “He tried to have serious interest in a deal with the Iranian regime with respect to their nuclear capabilities, and so Operation Midnight Hammer happened.”

That the White House makes no distinction between two longtime adversaries openly hostile to the United States with a Democratic ally and NATO member stands to only deepen the fear inside Europe that Trump could break the decades-old alliance.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned Monday that an American attack on another NATO country would mean “everything stops, including NATO and thus the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War.”

Pressed on why Trump was openly bullying Denmark, which controls Greenland, instead of working to update existing security agreements and pursuing new economic cooperation with a longtime ally, Leavitt was coy.

“Who said diplomacy isn’t taking place behind the scenes?” she said.

But the panicked responses from Denmark’s leaders, not to mention several European heads of state who jointly declared on Tuesday that any U.S. violation of Greenland’s sovereignty would be a breach of the NATO charter, made it clear that officials in Copenhagen and Brussels, as well as Greenland’s capital of Nuuk, feel a rising threat.

And as several Republican allies have tried to downplay the likelihood of any actual U.S. effort to take Greenland, the White House continues to insist that the president is serious about acquiring the territory — one way or another.

“He’s not the first U.S. president that has examined or looked at how could we acquire Greenland,” Rubio said. “There’s an interest there. So, I just reminded [members] of the fact that not only did [President Harry] Truman want to do it, but President Trump’s been talking about this since his first term.”

Longtime Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement on Wednesday that strengthening America’s foothold in the increasingly competitive Arctic region does not have to come at the expense of its oldest security alliance.

“Close security cooperation between Americans, Danes, and Greenlanders is a tradition older than NATO, the most successful military alliance in human history,” McConnell said. “Threats and intimidation by U.S. officials over American ownership of Greenland are as unseemly as they are counterproductive. And the use of force to seize the sovereign democratic territory of one of America’s most loyal and capable allies would be an especially catastrophic act of strategic self-harm to America and its global influence.”

Leavitt insisted the president maintains his stated commitment to NATO and its founding principle that an attack on any member amounts to an attack on all, pointing to a social media post from the president hours earlier that suggested it’s the alliance’s commitment to the U.S. that is in doubt.

“I DOUBT NATO WOULD BE THERE FOR US IF WE REALLY NEEDED THEM,” Trump blasted on Truth Social, insisting the U.S. would still defend alliance members. “We will always be there for NATO, even if they won’t be there for us.”

The one time NATO’s Article 5 was invoked was after 9/11, when allies, including Denmark, sent troops to fight alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan.

“Past leaders have often ruled things out. They’ve often been very open about ruling things in and basically broadcasting their foreign policy strategies to the rest of the world, not just to our allies but most egregiously to our adversaries,” Leavitt said. “That’s not something this president does. All options are always on the table for President Trump.”

Leo Shane III contributed to this report.