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| - The image was an edited version of a real photograph of a meeting between Trump and European leaders in the Oval Office in August 2025. The original map showed Ukraine, but someone digitally altered it to show a map of the Americas and Greenland with Venezuela, the U.S., Canada and Greenland filled in with a U.S. flag.
As tensions mounted between Europe and the U.S. in January 2026 over President Donald Trump's plan to take over Greenland, a rumor circulated that Trump had shared an image of himself surrounded by European leaders in the Oval Office of the White House, showing them a map of the Americas and Greenland in which Venezuela, Canada and Greenland had been filled in with the U.S. flag.
For example, the Facebook page of Occupy Democrats shared the supposed image with a post saying the image was a real photograph of all the leaders in the Oval Office that had been digitally altered to add this map. The post began:
BREAKING: MAD KING! Trump sets his sights on conquering Canada in addition to Greenland and posts a map showing both regions as territories of the United States.
We're accelerating towards a historic disaster here...
In a middle-of-the-night Truth Social post, Trump shared a photoshopped image of himself in the Oval Office showing a map of Canada and Greenland covered by the American flag to world leaders including British Prime Minister Keir Star, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and French President Emanuel Macron.
The original unedited photograph depicts the group of leaders reviewing a conflict map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The stomach-churning irony is that Trump is now flirting with a fascist invasion of his own modeled after Vladimir Putin's.
(Facebook page Occupy Democrats)
The same image with the same claim appeared on Instagram. Snopes readers also emailed seeking to confirm the veracity of the rumor.
The claim was true. At 12:58 a.m. Eastern time on Jan. 20, 2026, Trump posted the edited image on his social network,
(Truth Social user @realDonaldTrump)
As the Occupy Democrats post said, the image was an edited version of a real photograph taken on Aug. 18, 2025 by a White House photographer. The official White House Flickr account posted the original image along with other snaps from the same meeting on Aug. 19.
(The White House via Flickr)
The map visible in the original photograph showed Ukraine, not the Americas. The title of the map was "Russia-Ukraine Conflict Map As of August 17." The red zones showed the areas then controlled by Russia, according to the map's legend.
Gathered around the Resolute Desk were (from the back to the front of the image): U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
It was not clear at the time of this writing who edited the image to show the map with Venezuela, Canada and Greenland filled in with the U.S. flag or what tools they used to do so.
As hostilities grew among NATO members in early 2026, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was reportedly weighing sending troops to Greenland. Military personnel from other NATO members — Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the U.K. — were starting to arrive in Greenland, according to the BBC.
In response, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on those eight European NATO members should they not reach a deal on Greenland. As a defensive move, leaders of the European Union were set to discuss a package of $108 billion in retaliatory duties. Macron, meanwhile, was reportedly considering the activation of anti-coercion measures — this tool, widely described as a "bazooka," was created in 2023 to deter any economic coercion of any or all 27 countries of the EU.
For further reading, Snopes confirmed Trump sent Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre a message in which he said his plan to acquire Greenland stemmed from the fact Norway had not awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize.
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