The president’s move to seize control of Denmark’s Greenland has sparked anxiety across Europe about the future of the alliance.
President Trump insists on US acquisition of Greenland at Davos meeting
In his speech at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, the president advocated for Greenland to become a US territory.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has backed off his threat to annex Greenland after pushing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to near breaking point over the issue. Current and former officials from member states warned that occupying Danish territory would seriously undermine, if not end, the transatlantic alliance.
In a dramatic speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Trump took his frustrations out on NATO allies from Canada to Denmark, saying he was not considering military action to acquire Greenland.
“We don’t need to use force. We don’t want to use force. We won’t use force. All the United States wants is a place called Greenland,” Trump said during his speech, repeatedly referring to Greenland as another country, “Iceland.”
The president has previously refused to rule out taking Greenland by military force.
After meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Davos on January 21, President Trump said on social media that he had secured the framework for a deal on Greenland and Arctic security, but did not discuss the terms of the deal, saying only that “more information will emerge as the talks progress.”
He added that “Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and various others as needed will be responsible for negotiations.”
Ahead of Davos, officials remained hopeful of a peaceful resolution. But the president’s push to gain control of Greenland has sparked widespread anxiety about the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a 32-nation alliance that acts as a counterweight to Russia and has served as the bedrock of Western security for more than 75 years.
“By starting this dialogue, we will be giving strength to America’s enemies in Europe. China and Russia will take advantage of that,” Lithuanian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Vice Chairman Zygimantas Pavilionis told reporters at a roundtable discussion in Washington on January 20. “Any division of a free nation allows an axis of evil to grow.”
On January 17, President Trump threatened to impose 10% tariffs on U.S. imports from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland, citing the countries’ opposition to the U.S. acquisition of Greenland. He said the tariffs would come into effect on February 1 and increase to 25% on June 1.
European officials said their countries would not be “intimidated” by Trump or threatened with retaliation for his intimidation. They were considering installing an anti-coercion measure called a “trade bazooka.”
The stock market reacted poorly to this news, with the S&P stock hitting a three-month low on January 20th.
Hours before leaving Washington, Trump reiterated his threat of a U.S. takeover of Greenland, telling reporters “we’ll see” how far he’s willing to go. On January 19, when asked by NBC News if he would use force to claim Greenland, the president replied, “No comment.”
However, President Trump said in a Jan. 21 social media post that the “framework for a future agreement on Greenland, and indeed the entire Arctic region,” eliminated the need for tariffs, leading to a rise in the market.
Speaking in Switzerland, the president said his effort to acquire sparsely populated, ice-covered land was a “very small request” compared to what the United States has done to help European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since World War II.
However, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen seemed visibly relieved in a statement sent to USA TODAY late on January 21st.
“The day is ending better than when it began,” Rasmussen wrote. “We welcome President Trump’s decision to eliminate the armed occupation of Greenland and suspend the trade war with Europe. Now, let’s sit down and consider how we can address America’s security concerns in the Arctic while respecting the Red Lines of the Kingdom of Denmark.”
NATO is on the brink
Article 5 of the NATO Charter states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. The device was used only once, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on American soil, when the United States led troops from NATO allies, including Denmark, to fight alongside the United States in Afghanistan. Denmark also sent troops to Iraq.
In a letter sent to Norway’s prime minister on January 18, President Trump said that because he has not won the Nobel Peace Prize, he “no longer feels an obligation” to “think purely about peace.” “The world will not be safe unless we have full and complete control of Greenland,” he wrote.
The Supreme Allied Commander in Europe has always been a U.S. military general, but currently it is U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus G. Grinkewich, who was nominated by President Trump.
Former House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, warned on ABC News’ “This Week” on Jan. 18 that President Trump’s military invasion would “overturn NATO Article 5 and essentially force us to go to war with NATO itself” and “ultimately abolish NATO as we know it.”
Denmark may choose to tolerate the US occupation of Greenland to avoid confrontation, but US-European ties remain under severe strain.
“You can imagine a very bad scenario where the alliance would be much weaker, if not disappear,” said Mark Cancian, a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and senior adviser for defense and security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The United States already has a military base in Greenland and has received an invitation from the Danish government to add more. But President Trump said the United States needed to own the island for “national security” and “psychological” reasons.
Sophie Aerts, a researcher at the German Marshall Fund who studies Nordic and Arctic security, said the conflict over Greenland was “vital to the NATO alliance”.
Ertz said it would be beneficial for President Trump and European leaders to “have this conversation offline” and air the dispute face-to-face at Davos.
Trump may be following that strategy.
“The Secretary-General had a very productive meeting with President Trump during which they discussed the critical importance of Arctic security to all allies, including the United States,” NATO Spokesperson Alison Hart told reporters in a statement on January 21. “Discussions among NATO allies on the framework mentioned by the president will focus on ensuring the security of the Arctic through the joint efforts of the allies, especially the seven Arctic Alliance members. Negotiations between Denmark, Greenland and the United States will proceed with the aim of ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold in Greenland, both economically and militarily.”
President Trump has made NATO nervous before.
The spat over Greenland is just the latest in President Trump’s relationship with NATO. Since his first term, he has repeatedly complained that other member states do not spend enough money on their militaries. Last June, NATO committed its members to spending 5% of their GDP on defense by 2035.
And despite backing away from the brink of destroying the alliance, Trump during his speech in Davos attacked Canada, a member state he also expressed interest in gaining. “Canada receives a lot of free gifts from us,” President Trump said. “They should be grateful, but they aren’t.”
NATO members are “increasingly realizing that they can’t really rely on the United States in the long term,” said the German Marshall Fund’s Ertz. “You cannot threaten a NATO ally to invade another NATO ally,” she added.
In a statement on January 9, 14 former U.S. officials, including former NATO ambassadors and members of the National Security Council, called President Trump’s threats against Greenland “strategically foolish.”
“One of the world’s longest and strongest bilateral relationships is being fractured, turning one of Europe’s most pro-American countries against the United States, and potentially destroying the more than 76-year-old North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance with Europe and Canada,” the statement read.
“There is still a way out of this disaster,” former U.S. Ambassador to Poland Daniel Fried, who signed the statement, told USA TODAY. “Trump has a knack for knowing when to cut his losses,” said Fried, who served on the National Security Council and was assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs under President George W. Bush.
Before leaving Washington, President Trump said he believed “something” would be worked out with NATO.
President Trump told reporters: “Whether we like it or not, the best we can do is have us. Without us in NATO, NATO is not very strong.”
Greenland conflict could also affect Ukraine
Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov told a news conference on January 20 that President Trump’s threats represented a “serious crisis” in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which has been fighting for years to curb its expansion into Eastern Europe.
“This is a huge turmoil for Europe, and we are watching it closely. We have lost faith in the very Euro-Atlantic concept of ensuring security and cooperation,” Lavrov said.
Rutte told a gathering of business and political leaders in Davos on January 21 that he was concerned that the White House’s relentless focus on Greenland was ignoring Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“I’m a little worried that we’re going to focus so much on these other issues that we’re going to drop the ball,” Rutte said during a panel discussion before Trump’s speech.
“They need our support now, tomorrow and the day after,” Rutte said, referring to Ukraine. “We need our European allies to stay focused on this issue.”
Ivanna Klympsz-Tsintsadze, a Ukrainian politician who heads the EU Integration Committee of the Ukrainian parliament, told reporters at a roundtable in Washington on January 20 that how the Greenland conflict is resolved is important because it will determine the future strength of the NATO alliance.
“If NATO continues to exist, and I hope it continues to exist, and is growing stronger, I don’t see any real security other than Ukraine’s membership in NATO,” Klympush-Tsintsadze said.
Russia is trying to take Ukraine’s membership in NATO off the table as a condition for ending the war. These proposals were part of a draft plan that the United States presented to Ukraine late last year.
Contributor: Kim helm guard, Joey Garrison
