{"id":198611,"date":"2026-01-30T06:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T06:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/how-far-will-europe-go-to-defend-greenland-from-trump-world-news-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T06:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T06:12:17","slug":"how-far-will-europe-go-to-defend-greenland-from-trump-world-news-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/how-far-will-europe-go-to-defend-greenland-from-trump-world-news-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"How far will Europe go to defend Greenland from Trump? | World news – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

The president\u2019s disregard for international law exposes the continent\u2019s reliance on the US. Leaders have hardened their language in support of Denmark, but the price of confronting him is high
<\/span><\/strong> Don\u2019t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<\/strong><\/a>
Donald Trump\u2019s threat to take control of Greenland \u201cone way or the other\u201d has left the territory and its sovereign power Denmark reeling and the rest of Europe scrambling for ways to stop him.
After the shock of the US\u2019s military raid on Venezuela Trump\u2019s ambition to put Greenland next on his hitlist is no longer being seen in Europe as bluster or fantasy, but a serious intention, driven by ideology, neo-imperial expansionism<\/a>, US thirst for critical minerals, or all of the above.
Trump\u2019s self-confessed disregard for international law<\/a> is again exposing the painful dilemma caused by Europe\u2019s crippling dependence on the US for military security: do they confront him or appease him<\/a>, even as his rogue-state actions mirror the Russian invasion of Ukraine they say is illegal?
Soon after the Venezuela raid \u2013 which was met with a deafening silence from Europe \u2013 the Trump aide Stephen Miller gloated in a CNN interview that \u201cnobody is going to fight the United States\u201d for Greenland<\/a>.
Is Miller right? In recent days there has been a tonal shift. The leaders of six European powers \u2013 France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and the UK \u2013 issued a rare joint statement, reaffirming their support for Danish sovereignty and, in effect, warning Trump to keep his hands off Greenland. Greenland belongs to its people, they said: \u201cIt is for Denmark<\/a> and Greenland and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.\u201d
But what kind of \u201cfight\u201d these European powers are prepared to mount for Greenland if diplomacy fails is unclear.
At a high-stakes meeting in Washington<\/a> today, Denmark was seeking to de-escalate the crisis with security promises, while insisting that Greenland is not for sale. Many Greenlanders are ambivalent about Denmark due to its colonial legacy<\/a>, but the two governments are, for now, in lockstep. The US vice-president, JD Vance, was expected to revive more 19th-century ideas, such as \u201cpurchasing\u201d the territory\u2019s secession.
Trump\u2019s justification for sabre-rattling against a faithful Nato ally, supposedly to shield Greenland from alleged future aggression by Russia or China, does not add up, say analysts. US security concerns could be met without annexing Greenland.
Greenland has been a semiautonomous territory since 1979, but as part of Denmark, it is defended by Nato. Trump could demand that the US\u2019s Nato allies tighten protection of the strategically located territory\u2019s external borders.
Existing cold war-era treaties<\/a> between Denmark and the US for the joint defence of Greenland<\/a> give Washington a free hand to deploy more troops. It could reopen 16 of the 17 US military bases it previously operated, but then shut down.
A modus vivendi?<\/strong>
As alarm mounts in Denmark, and in Greenland itself \u2013 from where Miranda Bryant\u2019s vivid dispatch <\/a>describes a fearful mood, with many people wondering whether to flee \u2013 we may see the UK play a more active role to defuse this crisis. Keir Starmer\u2019s government hopes to broker a \u201cmodus vivendi\u201d with Washington, the Guardian\u2019s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, tells me. Having kept a low profile on Venezuela, Starmer hopes that American security concerns about the entire Arctic region can be addressed under existing treaties, while allaying Denmark\u2019s fears about \u201cownership\u201d.
Starmer and Trump have spoken twice in the last week about doing more to protect the \u201chigh north\u201d from potential Russian incursion. \u201cThe view in London is that there is a deal to be done on Greenland,\u201d Patrick said. \u201cThe difficulty with this US administration, however, is in identifying precisely what the president\u2019s motives are when he talks about \u2018ownership\u2019.\u201d
\u201cGreenland seems to hold some mystical quality for Trump, but does this mean he wants to be able to point at the US map and show that its territory has expanded to take in Greenland? This is what remains unclear.\u201d
Starmer has dispatched his foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, to Finland and Norway. Ahead of her visit, she made no direct mention of Greenland or the need to repel Trump\u2019s threats but called on \u201cNato to step up its work in the Arctic to protect Euro-Atlantic interests in the region\u201d. Cooper\u2019s statement also said: \u201cAs climate change opens the Arctic, the region will become an ever more critical frontier for Nato.\u201d
\u201cBy referencing climate change, melting Arctic ice and the consequent deepening of the threat posed by Russia,\u201d Patrick says, \u201cthe UK is acknowledging the validity of Trump\u2019s concerns, but of course not his solution of US occupation.\u201d
However, with Trump apparently ready to destroy Nato<\/a> for the sake of controlling Greenland, whatever his motives, Europe\u2019s options<\/a> seem fraught with risk.
But there are strategic cards Europe could play. Robert Habeck, the former vice-chancellor of Germany, argued in the Guardian<\/a> on Monday that Europe should assert a bit of its own machtpolitik<\/em> (power politics) and offer Greenland a return to EU membership, along with a massive investment package, to fend off US threats. Greenland left the then European Communities in 1985, to regain control of its fisheries. But if the EU matched Denmark\u2019s annual block grant with billions in new investment, the calculus could change in a radically altered world.
Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive of the European Policy Centre in Brussels, said that Europe could, if it stuck together, show Trump that his dog-eat-dog coercion comes at a cost. He said that Europe must make \u201cnot symbolic gestures, but measures that resonate domestically in the US and hurt Trump and his policy choices where it matters most: with his political base. Trade, market access, regulatory cooperation and industrial partnerships all provide leverage.\u201d
For Paris-based columnist Alexander Hurst, Europe\u2019s best course of action is to force \u201ca rupture\u201d with the US, including telling the US to leave its European military bases. \u201cEverything short of actual combat should be considered,\u201d Hurst wrote<\/a>, \u201cbecause \u2018annexing Greenland\u2019 is a symptom of American fascism, and others will follow.\u201d
To receive the complete version of This Is Europe in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

The president\u2019s disregard for international law exposes the continent\u2019s reliance on the US. Leaders have hardened their language in support of Denmark, but the price of confronting him is high Don\u2019t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereDonald Trump\u2019s threat to take control of Greenland \u201cone way or the other\u201d has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198612,"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":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-198611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198611","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=198611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}