How Trump’s Quest to Take the Island Reached a Crisis Point

Greenland’s future has set the geopolitical agenda in just two weeks, with warnings of potential military action and threats to the alliance between the US and Europe.

Transatlantic tensions over the issue quickly reached a crisis point.

US President Donald Trump has long argued that the US should control Greenland, saying in 2019 that his administration was interested in buying the territory. Important to US national security — but accepted the idea”not in the first place on the burner.

Denmark, which is responsible for protecting the island, rejected this notion as “absurd” at the time. Trump refused Planned trip to Copenhagen in response.

Trump has reiterated his interest in Greenland as he prepares to return to the White House in late 2024. He said this on his TruthSocial platform The US believes that “Ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

The US stunned the world on January 3 with a daring military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The next day, Trump gave an interview to The Atlantic, telling the magazine, “We really need Greenland.” He said he was “surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships.”

“We need Greenland from a national security perspective and Denmark can’t do that, I can tell you that,” he said on Air Force One later that day.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called on Trump to “end threats against a historically close ally and against another country and other people who have made it clear that they will not sell out.”

In a show of solidarity, European leaders issued a joint statement on January 6, challenging Trump by saying they must collectively achieve Arctic security.

“Denmark and Greenland and they can solve problems related to Denmark and Greenland,” he said. statement said. It was signed by the leaders of Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain and Poland, and later endorsed by other key regional players.

Talks between US officials and the foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark are scheduled for January 14 at the White House. Earlier that day, Trump halved In Truth’s social post.

“The United States needs Greenland for national security purposes. It is very important for the Golden Dome we are building. NATO must lead the way for us to get it,” he wrote.

“NATO will be stronger and more effective with Greenland in the hands of the US. Anything less will not be tolerated,” he added. In his next post, Trump said that only the United States can counter threats to the island from Russia and China.

White House talks later ended inconclusively. Soon several NATO members stationed a small army to Greenland for a joint military exercise.

The German Ministry of Defense has announced that it will send a group of 13 people to Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, to help strengthen the region’s security at Denmark’s invitation. Troops from France, Sweden and Norway also took part in it.

On Saturday, Trump turned to one of his favorite tools for leverage. he threatened introduce a wave of tariff hikes Eight European countries are against his plans.

Trump said it will impose a 10% tariff on goods from Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK from February 1, rising to 25% from June 1.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the threats “fundamentally unacceptable”, while British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the move “absolutely wrong”.

This was announced on Monday European leaders Discussed retaliatory tariffs and broader punitive economic countermeasures against the US One potential move was the Anti-Coercion Instrument, or ACI, which would limit the EU’s access to the EU market for US suppliers by preventing them from participating in government tenders.

For Greenland, a large island with just 57,000 people, the threat of a US invasion has made it the center of a geopolitical storm. Thousands of Greenlanders marched through Nuuk in protest on Saturday, while an estimated 20,000 people demonstrated in Copenhagen.

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Greenland’s business minister, Naaja Nathanielsen, said the island is feeling its own. “confused” and “devastated” as the case may be.

Nathanielsen told CNBC, “Suddenly we find ourselves in the middle of a storm about buying products or property, which is very difficult for us — not to mention the threat of military action and the actual invasion of our country.”

On Tuesday, Greenland Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen told reporters he could not rule out a US invasion. According to him, “a military conflict is unlikely, but it cannot be ruled out.”

On this occasion, many global leaders attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Leader after leader warned of the consequences of Trump’s rhetoric and actions for the transatlantic alliance.

France’s Macron warned on Tuesday of a transition to a “world without rules” without naming Trump, saying Europe would not be intimidated by “bullies”. He said it was “crazy” that Europe was considering using ACI.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told the gathering that “the old order is not coming back” and warned that “nostalgia is not a strategy.” According to him, the new order is “a system in which the most powerful use economic integration as coercion and intensify the rivalry of the great powers pursuing their own interests.”

Trump, who believes there is “there is no going backAccording to Greenland, he is scheduled to speak in Davos later on Wednesday.