The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, along with recent comments from the White House have made clear that US President Donald Trump’s ambition to take over Greenland needs to be taken very seriously. European governments are reportedly discussing contingency plans if he makes good on his threats.
A US military attack on the territory of a friendly European country — effectively the end of the NATO alliance — still seems unlikely, though can’t be ruled out entirely. While there have been proposals to station more troops in Greenland as a deterrent, for now, European governments seem to view that step as unnecessarily escalatory.
A political and economic campaign to pressure Europe into giving up Greenland seems more likely. The best hope of preventing the US from going farther down this road may be just how unpopular the idea is in Greenland itself and in the United States.
No one is laughing about Greenland anymore.
President Donald Trump’s frequently expressed desire for the US to take possession of the world’s largest island may once have been treated as a lark, troll, or distraction, but following last week’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, it’s become clear that Trump is increasingly acquiring a taste for military action and that he is even less constrained by international norms than previously thought.
“We do need Greenland, absolutely,” Trump said, shortly after the Maduro raid, describing it as “surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships.” The White House said on Tuesday that Trump and his senior advisers are discussing options for how to take over the Danish territory and that military force is “always an option.”
Trump’s senior adviser, Stephen Miller, dismissed the idea that there was anything stopping the US from pursuing its imperialist visions in the far north, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper, “Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. … We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” (Secretary of State Marco Rubio took a softer line, saying no invasion was imminent and that the goal is to purchase Greenland. Neither Denmark nor Greenland have indicated any interest in selling.)
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen responded to the threats by saying that Trump’s ambitions for the territory should be taken seriously and that “If the United States were to choose to attack another NATO country, then everything would come to an end. The international community as we know it, democratic rules of the game, NATO, the world’s strongest defensive alliance — all of that would collapse if one NATO country chose to attack another.”
On Tuesday, the leaders of six European countries along with Greenland issued a joint statement affirming the importance of territorial integrity and stating that “it is for Denmark and Greenland and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.” The French government says it is in communication with partners over plans to respond if Trump makes good on his threats.
Strong words, but can Europe back them up? If we take Trump at his word that he plans to take some action on Greenland “in about two months,” what can Denmark and its European allies do before then to dissuade him? And if he follows through on his threats, what costs are they willing to pay to fight back?
Would the US really get into a shooting war over Greenland?
The idea of an actual US vs. Europe military conflict over Greenland still seems outlandish, even after what happened in Venezuela, though European countries aren’t discounting it entirely. A global outlook published by Denmark’s intelligence service in in December classified the United States, for the first time, as a security risk, writing that Washington “uses economic power, including in the form of threats of high tariffs, to enforce its will and no longer excludes the use of military force, even against allies.” The country’s foreign ministry has set up a “night watch” to monitor Trump’s activities and social media activity posts while the rest of the country is sleeping.
“I absolutely think there’s the political will to protect Greenland.”
— Rachel Rizzo, senior fellow focused on transatlantic security at the Observer Research Foundation
Early in 2025, when it first became clear Trump wasn’t going to let the issue drop, the French government discussed sending troops to Greenland as a deterrent, though the proposal hasn’t gone anywhere since then. The consensus for now among European governments is that a military build-up to counter the United States would risk further inflaming tensions with Trump while still probably not being enough to hold off a (still hard to imagine) US operation to seize the territory by force.
“For all of the military assets that Europe has and that NATO has, the United States still remains the backbone of NATO, and I think that that’s why this is also such an unprecedented conversation that we’re having,” said Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow focused on transatlantic security at the India-based Observer Research Foundation.
Trump has mocked Denmark’s recent moves to bolster security in Denmark by saying they had added “one more dogsled.” In fact, Copenhagen announced a new $4.26 billion arctic security package in November, including two additional naval vessels and 16 F-35 fighter jets. Ironically, this is the sort of spending Trump, who has long accused NATO countries of skimping on their own defense and free-riding on US security guarantees, has called for, though until recently the idea that increased spending would provide security from the United States would have seemed very strange.
Even with a bulked-up military, Denmark and allies may not be a match for the US in a conventional war. Danish commentators calling for more troops to be sent to Greenland acknowledge this would be mostly a symbolic step. Still, it’s worth noting that Denmark not only fought alongside the United States in Afghanistan — a major source of frustration now that they’re being bullied by its government — but lost around the same number of troops per capita.. Trump and Miller’s dismissive comments aside, this is not a country that lacks the will to defend itself.
“I absolutely think there’s the political will to protect Greenland,” Rizzo said.
Trump could threaten Greenland in other ways
If it’s still hard to imagine even Trump militarily invading a friendly European NATO ally, it’s much easier to imagine him applying political and economic pressure to get what he wants. European officials interviewed in a recent Atlantic article sketched out a scenario in which Trump simply declares Greenland to be a US protectorate. He could then use various forms of leverage to pressure Denmark and other European governments to accept US control of Greenland as a fait accompli. This could include his preferred economic weapon, tariffs. He could also threaten to pull the United States out of NATO —a scenario that appeared very possible during his first term but that he has spoken less about lately. Finally, he could return to another familiar source of leverage: threatening to withhold ongoing US weapons aid and intelligence support to Ukraine.
What can Europe do to prevent this? The first choice is likely to cut a deal with the notoriously transactional president. It’s become clear that Trump’s interest in Greenland is not just about leverage or pressure — he sincerely wants the island, either because he’s genuinely worried about Chinese and Russian activities in the Arctic or because he’s simply interested in territorial expansion as an end unto itself. But could savvy diplomacy turn his obsession into a form of leverage? The question now facing European leaders, says Liana Fix, senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, is “is there something that can give Donald Trump a win that does not violate the sovereignty of Denmark?”
One reason Europeans are skeptical of Trump’s stated concern about the island’s security needs is that the US military already has broad latitude through prior defense agreements to operate in the territory. The Danish government has also made clear it’s open to an expanded US troop presence in Greenland and increased US mining activity, so long as it remains sovereign Danish territory, but this was apparently not enough for the Trump administration.
It’s possible there may be an unrelated issue Europe could cut a deal on in exchange for Trump backing off, such as the Digital Services Act, which is strongly opposed by US tech companies and has been harshly criticized by Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk, and others in Trump’s orbit.
Fix notes that “it’s a fine line to walk, not to appear to be appeasing” Trump. This is one case, she notes, where “appeasing is likely to backfire.”
European governments could threaten to sanction US companies or sell off US bonds, but at the end of the day, notes Rizzo, “Europe doesn’t have that much leverage economically over the United States,” which has already helped Trump in trade talks this term, and is likely the reason he feels emboldened to treat Denmark this way.
The best weapon the Europeans may have for resisting US pressure may be just how unpopular an idea this is in all corners of the Atlantic. Danish rule is a fraught issue in Greenland and all the island’s political parties support eventual independence, albeit on different timelines. But Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, noted that Trump’s brute-force approach has offended Greenlanders as well, leading to increased coordination between Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, and Copenhagen. The Greenland government has refused to engage in bilateral talks with the Americans without Danish involvement, an opportunity they might have jumped at under other circumstances.
Polls show US control of Greenland is deeply unpopular there. “It has been very difficult for the US administration, for the MAGA universe, to tell stories about anyone in Greenland actually wanting to be American,” Gad said. A visit by second lady Usha Vance to Nuuk was scrapped in March amid reports of planned protests, though the administration blamed scheduling issues. The fact that one particularly vocal Greenlandic Trump superfan, stonemason Jørgen Boassen, has become a quasi-celebrity who seems to be interviewed in nearly every article about the topic, indicates that there is probably not a wide base of support for US annexation.
The lack of any popular base of local support would make it difficult for the US to pull off a version of the “little green men” operation Russia carried out in Crimea in 2014, which involved Russian forces taking over the region while presenting it as a local uprising against Ukrainian rule. Whether or not they were actually a majority, there at least was a significant amount of local support for Russian rule in Crimea. That’s not the case in Greenland.
Trump prefers quick and overwhelming victories in his foreign policy actions — arresting Maduro, bombing Iran’s nuclear sites. Even if he could take over Greenland, and even if he doesn’t care about effectively destroying NATO, how much sense does it make for the US to rule long-term over a hostile population in a territory that polls show Americans overwhelmingly don’t even want? A YouGov survey released this week shows only 8 percent of Americans support using force to take Greenland and just 28 percent support purchasing it.
End of the road for the alliance?
All of this is taking place against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire. Just this week, even amid the rising Greenland tensions, France and the UK announced a plan for future security guarantees for Ukraine that envisions the US playing a prominent role in monitoring the ceasefire.
Would European governments really be willing to blow up the transatlantic security alliance over Greenland?
For all Trump’s bluster and surprise tweets, Europeans have been fairly successful at keeping him onside over the past year when it comes to NATO in general and continuing material support for Ukraine in particular. This is likely one major reason why European governments have been reluctant to criticize Trump’s Greenland ambitions too strongly.
So the question is, would European governments really be willing to blow up the transatlantic security alliance over Greenland? The answer — particularly from Denmark, as Frederiksen’s comments this week indicated, is that by taking Greenland against their will, Trump would have blown it up anyway.
“Basically, all the important European countries understand and agree that Europe will need to be independent from the US in the long run,” said Gad, the Danish analyst. “The basic dynamic is still that we need to make this [alliance ] fall apart so slowly that we don’t get in a lot of trouble before the process is over.”
In other words, policymakers in Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, London, and elsewhere would no doubt prefer the process of weaning themself off dependence on the United States for their security to happen on their own timeline rather than one dictated by Trump, particularly with a major war raging on their doorstep, but they may no longer have that luxury.
“Why on Earth would we want to make a deal with Donald Trump [over Greenland] when the expectation is that he won’t keep it anyway?” Gad said. The distrust is likely to outlast this presidency.
“You elected the guy twice; we can’t trust you,” Gad added.
