Washington's Greenland ambitions alarm Europe, threaten future of NATO

The prospect of the United States annexing Greenland is looming larger after President Donald Trump reiterated his intention to control the world's largest island, raising alarm in Europe amid recent US military actions abroad.

Despite clear opposition from the autonomous island of Denmark and a coordinated rebuke from European leaders, Washington has pressed ahead. US officials have weighed options ranging from purchase to military action, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio set to meet Danish officials next week as tensions intensify.

Analysts said the threatening rhetoric has further eroded trust within the trans-Atlantic alliance, raising questions about NATO's future and underscoring the need for Europe to think more seriously about strategic autonomy.

Greenland's strategic location between Europe and North America has long attracted US interest. During World War II, Washington sent troops to prevent Nazi Germany from gaining a foothold, and the US military has maintained a presence since, stationing the Pituffik air base used for missile early-warning during the Cold War.

The logistical value of the island as a maritime hub has increased in recent years as global warming opens shorter Arctic shipping routes between the Atlantic and Pacific.

With a population of around 56,000 and 80 percent of its land covered by ice, Greenland sits atop significant natural resources that add to its strategic appeal. A joint geological survey conducted by Denmark and Greenland in 2023 found that the island's ice-free areas contain substantial deposits of critical raw materials, including rare earth metals, graphite, niobium, platinum group metals and molybdenum.

Even as Greenland's leaders have signaled openness to work with the US on mining resources, Trump has insisted that Washington needs the island as a matter of national security.

He first floated the idea in 2019, proposing to buy Greenland — a suggestion rejected by Denmark and dismissed by many observers as political theater rather than a serious initiative.

Last year, weeks after Trump returned to the White House, he suggested that tariffs could be imposed on Denmark if it resisted his offer to purchase Greenland. The idea was firmly opposed again, supported by other European leaders.

His latest remarks were particularly alarming. Just days after US military action in Venezuela over the weekend, Trump told reporters, "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security."

Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen responded: "No more pressure. No more insinuations. No more fantasies of annexation."

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that any US attack on a NATO ally would be the end of the alliance itself.

"If the United States decides to militarily attack another NATO country, then everything would stop — that includes NATO and therefore post-World War II security," she told Danish television network TV 2 on Monday.

Leaders of European countries, including United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, France's President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, rallied support.

"It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland," they said in a joint statement on Tuesday with the prime ministers of Italy, Poland and Spain.

Later, the White House confirmed that acquiring Greenland "is something that's currently being actively discussed by the president and his national security team", and that Trump preferred diplomacy but would not rule out military action.

Shaking foundation

Ding Chun, director of the Center for European Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said Trump's repeated remarks about Greenland touch the bottom line of mutual trust with European allies.

"If the US were to resort to the use of force, it would inevitably shake the foundations of US-Europe relations and disrupt the basic mechanisms of cooperation within NATO," Ding said.

The development of the issue will depend on the intensity of US pressure on Greenland, the resolve of the countries directly concerned, and Europe's unity, as well as the domestic politics within the US, he said.

"The Greenland crisis would push US-Europe relations further apart and strengthen Europe's resolve to advance strategic autonomy, even though Europe would, in all likelihood, still opt for compromise in some way."

Marion Messmer, director of the International Security Programme at Chatham House in London, wrote in a commentary that US intentions toward Greenland threaten NATO's future.

"European countries need to think seriously about what NATO without the US would look like, and accelerate investments in those capabilities where the US remains strongest," she said, adding that leaders will remain concerned about Europe's ability to defend itself with a more unpredictable and even hostile US.

Jeremy Cliffe, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, argued that Europe must also be willing to respond more forcefully.

"Europe needs to become much more comfortable threatening Trump with serious deterrent measures — and, if necessary, implementing them — including tariffs, taxes, bans on US firms, sell-offs of US Treasuries, the expulsion of American troops, or sanctions on individuals," he wrote on X. "Speak his language: strength."

xingyi@chinadaily.com.cn