{"id":197186,"date":"2026-01-17T08:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T08:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/greenland-crisis-europe-needs-the-us-but-it-also-needs-to-stand-up-to-trump-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T08:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T08:18:07","slug":"greenland-crisis-europe-needs-the-us-but-it-also-needs-to-stand-up-to-trump-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/greenland-crisis-europe-needs-the-us-but-it-also-needs-to-stand-up-to-trump-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Greenland crisis: Europe needs the US, but it also needs to stand up to Trump – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president\u2019s increasingly bellicose demands for control of the island may force the EU to draw a line in the snow
Greenland: new shipping routes, hidden minerals \u2013 and a frontline between the US and Russia?<\/a>
The crisis over Greenland<\/a> may deliver the moment when Europe must stand up to Donald Trump, as officials have said a US attempt to annex the territory could shatter the Nato transatlantic alliance.
European leaders have entertained Trump\u2019s demands for nearly a year as he has pushed Nato countries to increase their defence spending to 5% of GDP, and threatened to pull US support from Ukraine as part of a peace process that appears to favour Russia. They have also given a muted response to US adventurism abroad including the capture and rendition of Venezuela\u2019s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.
The obsequiousness has often played out in public. Various European leaders have vied for the role of \u201cTrump whisperer\u201d and Nato\u2019s secretary general, Mark Rutte, infamously referred to him as \u201cdaddy\u201d at a summit last June.
But Trump\u2019s\u2019 repeated and increasingly bellicose demands that Denmark<\/a> cede or sell him semi-autonomous Greenland has sparked one of the greatest crises for transatlantic partnership in its history \u2013 and may force Europe to draw a line in the snow.
\u201cThe president\u2019s ambition is on the table,\u201d the Danish foreign minister, Lars L\u00f8kke Rasmussen told Fox News after the talks. \u201cOf course we have our red lines. This is 2026, you trade with people but you don\u2019t trade people.\u201d
After an hour-long meeting with the US vice-president, JD Vance, and secretary of state, Marco Rubio<\/a>, Rasmussen and Greenland\u2019s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, stood grim-faced smoking cigarettes outside of the Eisenhower executive building in Washington DC.
\u201cWhen it comes to Greenland, the Europeans have found a red line that they really want to stand by,\u201d said Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund for US defence and transatlantic security.
\u201cEverything else has been subject to negotiation \u2026 but the Greenland situation is different because it comes to the question of sovereignty, and it comes to the question of whether Europe is capable of standing up for itself in terms of its own territory, its own rights.\u201d
Europe, however, was at a \u201cdiplomatic disadvantage\u201d because of its dependency on the US for security, said Latvia\u2019s former prime minister Kri\u0161janis Kari\u0146\u0161.
\u201cEurope is not, unfortunately, in a strong position to strongly object, because, say, if Europe were to open up the dispute into the trade area, I\u2019m certain that the US would respond in kind or more than in kind,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the end of the day, Europe still needs the US.\u201d
The strain on officials from Denmark and Greenland has been enormous. A day after meeting US officials, a visibly emotional Motzfeldt said she had been overwhelmed by the last few days of negotiations.
\u201cDenmark has really only been a good ally to the US,\u201d said Marisol Maddox, a senior fellow at Dartmouth University\u2019s Arctic studies institute. \u201cSo that\u2019s also a part of what makes this so extraordinary, is this was like going up to your best friend and just randomly slapping them in the face … There\u2019s nothing to provoke this.\u201d
Trump\u2019s interest in acquiring the island has only grown since his longtime friend Ronald Lauder, the heir to the Est\u00e9e Lauder cosmetics company, first suggested it to him in 2019<\/a>. The White House has said its main concern is national security, but Trump has admitted that ego plays a key role as well. He told the New York Times last week that owning Greenland was \u201cwhat I feel is psychologically needed for success\u201d. On Friday, Trump threatened to impose tariffs<\/a> on countries that do not \u201cgo along\u201d with his ambition to annex Greenland<\/a>.
Others in his administration \u2013 particularly Vance \u2013 have seen the obsession over Greenland as an opportunity to pick another fight with European allies, and European diplomats saw his decision to join the negotiations as a negative sign.
Vance \u201cis especially enjoying this\u201d, one said. \u201cIt\u2019s clear why he\u2019s gotten involved and it will make the talks more emotional.\u201d Politico reported that 10 ministers and officials polled on his involvement did not regard him as an ally on Greenland or other transatlantic matters.
Europe has responded by seeking to cut the legs out from under the Trump administration\u2019s argument that Greenland is underprotected from a potential Russian or Chinese attack. A small French military contingent arrived on the island on Thursday as part of a limited deployment including troops from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK.
\u201cThe defence and protection of Greenland is a common concern for the entire Nato alliance,\u201d said Denmark\u2019s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen. Rasmussen and Motzfeldt are scheduled to meet Rutte for talks on Monday.
By deploying troops and assets, Kari\u0146\u0161 said European leaders could take away a pretext of the Trump administration for annexing the territory, referring to arguments that it was not protected from Russian and Chinese aggression.
\u201cPresident Trump has a pretty established track record now of sort of doing things his own way,\u201d he said. But if Europe strengthens Greenland\u2019s military security, \u201cit takes away a public argument by the Trump administration\u201d for annexation.
Aside from military deployments, observers have plenty of ideas about how the EU can protect Danish sovereignty of Greenland and assert European interest. At the milder end, suggestions include convening an international summit on Arctic security in Nuuk<\/a>, co-organised by Denmark and Greenland, together with the EU and non-EU countries including the UK, Canada, Norway and the US.
More radical ideas are also circulating, such as freezing the European parliament\u2019s vote on ratification of the EU-US trade deal<\/a> agreed with Trump at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last year. A group of socialist and green MEPs argue that voting on the deal, currently scheduled for February, would be \u201ceasily seen as rewarding \u2026 his actions\u201d.
Such a move, however, is unlikely to gain majority support in the right-leaning parliament, where many MEPs are wary of antagonising the White House.
The day after Rasmussen said Trump remained intent on conquering Greenland, EU officials continued to be diplomatic. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, described the US on Thursday as an ally and partner while discussing the Greenland situation.
She also set out how the EU was seeking to deepen support for the island, citing the opening of an office in Nuuk and a proposal to double EU financial aid. \u201cGreenland can count on us, politically, economically and financially,\u201d she told reporters.
Constantinos Kombos, the foreign minister of Cyprus, which currently holds the EU\u2019s rotating presidency, said the bloc needed to intensify dialogue with the US over Greenland. \u201cMaybe [the current administration] is different than what we are used to and it is, but that doesn\u2019t mean we have the luxury of responding with our self-isolation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US president\u2019s increasingly bellicose demands for control of the island may force the EU to draw a line in the snowGreenland: new shipping routes, hidden minerals \u2013 and a frontline between the US and Russia?The crisis over Greenland may deliver the moment when Europe must stand up to Donald Trump, as officials have said a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":197187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-197186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}