President Donald Trump’s insistence on the United States taking control of Greenland puts the future of America’s relationship with Europe on a precipice.
In a normal world, the White House meeting Wednesday between top officials from Denmark, Greenland and the U.S. could be said to have gone well. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had cordial discussions with the visiting dignitaries of allied nations. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen even told reporters afterward that he understood some of America’s security concerns around Greenland, given how climate change is opening the Arctic, rapidly transforming historical ice sheets into navigable waterways.
While the Europeans might have sought to de-escalate tensions, the same can’t be said for Trump.
While the Europeans might have sought to de-escalate tensions, the same can’t be said for Trump. The president’s focus on Greenland increasingly appears to be an obsession, particularly as he reiterates his demands in the face of widespread criticism. Before being sworn into his second term, Trump revived what had seemed like a bizarre, likely fleeting interest in 2019. In a statement naming his ambassador to Denmark, he declared that “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
The origin of this expansionist desire reportedly stemmed from a conversation with a billionaire friend, according to journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. He would later claim credit for the idea as his own in a 2021 interview: “I love maps. And I always said, ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.’”
Whatever the origin of Trump’s fixation, Greenland is the largest island in the world and there are strategic reasons for the U.S. to be interested in its future. As with so many Trump whims, this has sparked a sort of reverse engineering policy effort among Trump’s staff to find legitimate reasons for his interest. Some Trump allies, including Vance and several GOP senators, have emphasized the island’s natural resources, including rare earth metals. Others have focused on a need to potentially counter Russian or Chinese naval encroachment in the Arctic and North Atlantic.
In Trump’s first term, Denmark rejected Trump’s wish to purchase Greenland. It has continued to hold firm against the notion of a sale. There has been discussion in Greenland over the years about whether to seek independence. But Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said Tuesday that his country would rather stay put than become part of the U.S.
Denmark’s defiance hasn’t gone over well with Trump, who’s only grown more bellicose since his successful move to oust Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. During a White House event last week, Trump said the U.S. would “do something on Greenland whether they like it or not.” He added, “I would like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.”
Presumably the administration pressure campaign over the past year constitutes the “easy way,” at least in part. Last March, Vance and his wife took a controversial visit to Greenland, where the U.S. has a military base, to emphasize U.S. interest in the island. Reuters recently reported that the Trump administration mulled essentially bribing Greenlanders to break away from Denmark via a referendum in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars sent to each resident.
Exactly what Trump’s “hard way” would be hasn’t been said outright
Exactly what Trump’s “hard way” would be hasn’t been said outright, but last spring, Trump refused to rule out the use of force. Last week, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told CNN that “nobody is going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.” Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, the official White House X account posted a meme showing Greenland with a choice between a bright future with America and a dark time aligned with Russia and China. (In this prophecy, Denmark is apparently not part of the equation.)
European governments have been understandably rattled by the Trump team’s rhetoric. The European Parliament said Wednesday that it “unequivocally condemns the statements made by the Trump administration regarding Greenland, which constitute a blatant challenge to international law, to the principles of the United Nations Charter and to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a NATO ally.”
Should the U.S. move militarily against Denmark, a fellow NATO member, it would fundamentally shatter the transatlantic alliance. MS NOW has reported that European countries are discussing invoking a mutual defense clause in the European Union’s founding treaty in such an event. Along with the rupture of diplomatic and military ties, it would be hard in a moral respect to differentiate an American conquest of territory by force from Russia’s attempt to forcibly annex Ukraine.
In a normal world, Wednesday’s meeting could have been an opportunity for both sides to air their views and resolve tensions. But there is no diplomatic solution that will leave Trump satisfied. As he posted on social media ahead of the meeting, the outcome must be “Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES. Anything less than that is unacceptable.” If the options are for Denmark and Greenland to surrender or face the consequences, the only question is how long Trump will wait before deciding to do things “the hard way.”
