Just when it seemed Donald Trump's territorial ambitions in Greenland couldn't get more ridiculous, the Republican administration kicked things up a notch.

Denmark on Thursday summoned the top U.S. diplomat in the country for an explanation following a Wall Street Journal report about the United States stepping up intelligence gathering on Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory coveted by U.

A growing number of reports about the island have been included in information circulated in the executive branch and Congress, officials said.