Greenland Fallout: Trump’s Move That US Allies Won’t Forgive
Trump’s Greenland crisis rattled NATO for 2 weeks, exposing alliance cracks and shifting Arctic security debates as US allies rethink trust and sovereignty.
Following a successful military operation in Venezuela earlier this month, an emboldened Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric regarding Greenland.
Every day, the world was treated to claims of ownership, threats of military action, and talk of tariffs against traditional allies in Europe.
Now, suddenly, it all seems to have ended.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, arguably Trump's closest advisor, appears to have brought the president down from his dangerous high horse.
The groundwork for this was likely laid during last week's visit to Washington by the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers. That visit concluded with an agreement to establish a "working group" to discuss Greenland's future.
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But Rutte has seemingly defused an issue that threatened to fracture the North Atlantic alliance.
We don't yet know the details of the deal, but many will wonder what the point of this two-week-long, frenzied crisis was to get to this point.
Denmark has long said it would be happy with an increased US military presence in Greenland.
If NATO has now pledged to increase its presence on and around the island, it will go some way to reassuring Donald Trump that the alliance is finally paying proper attention to Greenland.
The New York Times, citing anonymous officials, reported that one idea under discussion is for Denmark to cede sovereignty over small areas of Greenland where the US would build military bases – a similar arrangement to the sovereign base areas the UK maintains in Cyprus.
Trump has suggested the deal would include access to Greenland's mineral resources.
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Neither Denmark nor NATO has confirmed these or any other reports. NATO said the discussions would focus on ensuring Arctic security through "collective efforts, particularly among the seven Arctic allies" (the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland), and are aimed at preventing Russia and China from gaining an economic or military foothold in Greenland.
Details of the deal will be released soon. But it will not be easily forgotten that Donald Trump created two weeks of high drama and an existential crisis within NATO to get to this point.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called it a "rupture," and said the old order "is not coming back."
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of "major changes" and urged greater European autonomy. It seems unlikely that everything will soon return to normal.
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