Europe has struggled to respond to Donald Trump’s second presidency and a crunch point has emerged with the US president’s desire to take ownership of Greenland. Nato would be stronger with Greenland in US hands, the US president declared yesterday on social media adding “Anything less than that is unacceptable”.
Reports on how the US might achieve this goal have been predictably unclear, with secretary of state Marco Rubio suggesting a purchase and others not ruling out military action, if necessary. Trump’s move against Venezuela suggest he is willing to act aggressively to achieve his goals.
Yesterday’s meeting in the White House between Rubio and vice-president JD Vance on the US side and the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers, Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Vivian Motzfeld, underlines the dilemmas ahead for Europe.
The two sides agreed to set up a joint working group to look for ways forward and Denmark has underlined its desire to work with the US. But the meeting was described as “frank,” a diplomatic way of describing a row. Rasmussen said that a “ fundamental disagreement” remained about the issue of ownership. Unless Trump is willing to draw back on his demands here, it is hard to see an agreed way forward emerging.
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In relation to Greenland, as with many areas of policy, the logic of Trump’s policy and his wider strategy is not entirely clear. As Denmark has underlined, the US can get much of what it wants in terms of an increased military presence and access to rare earths under existing agreements. Trump has insisted that US ownership is essential under his “Golden Dome” missile defence plan, suggesting he wants to locate missile interceptors on the island. This, too, could probably be negotiated.
In responding, Europe faces the same dilemma as it did when Trump threatened sweeping tariffs last April. It relies on the US to support Ukraine in its war against the Russian invasion and more widely for the functioning of Nato. This severely limits its room for manoeuvre.
Denmark has said it is immediately increasing its military presence on the island, “along with allies.” But this will not satisfy Washington, with Trump warning about the interest of Russia and China in the region. Europe has cards to play in response to Trump, as French president Emmanuel Macron threatened yesterday, when he said the US would face “unprecedented” consequences if the sovereignty of a European ally was affected.
It is unclear, however, just how far Europe is prepared to go. Perhaps, its leaders will hope, Trump has been using the familiar tactic of overstating his ambitions in search of a deal. But Europe would be most unwise to rely on this. The risk is that Trump remains deadly serious.
