Just how much is Donald Trump willing to risk in his quest to seize Greenland? Is he prepared to blow up the Nato alliance that formed when he was a toddler?
“You’ll find out,” the US president replied when a reporter posed that question to him during a lengthy, rambling press conference on Tuesday.
Trump also declined to offer any reassurances that Nato leaders were craving about his commitment to the stability of the transatlantic alliance after his threats to take over the Danish-controlled Arctic territory by force.
The president repeated multiple times that he had done more for Nato than anyone else, as part of suggestions that he should have free rein to shape its future and what territories the US controlled.
“I’ve made it so much better, so much stronger. It’s so good now. Nato is so much stronger,” Trump said. “When I came here we had a weak Nato … they were a nothing Nato. Whether you like it or not, it’s only as good as we are. If Nato doesn’t have us, Nato is not very strong.”
Trump rattled Nato allies over the weekend after threatening to impose tariffs on a group of European members of the alliance that opposed his bid for Greenland, prompting outrage from EU leaders.
The spiraling row has plunged trade relations between the EU and the US into fresh chaos, forcing the bloc to consider retaliatory measures and new tensions inside Nato that has guaranteed western security for decades.
Trump refuses to say how far he would go to seize Greenland
Donald Trump ratcheted up the uncertainty over how far he would be willing to go to acquire Greenland as he warned the Nato alliance on Tuesday that it was only as strong as the US.
Trump’s bellicose remarks came just hours before he was scheduled to leave Washington DC to travel to the World Economic Summit in Davos in Switzerland, where he was set to meet with world leaders.
Europe condemns Trump’s ‘new colonialism’ as Greenland tensions grow
European leaders have lined up to condemn Trump’s “new colonialism” and warn that the continent was facing a crossroads as the US president said there was no going back on his goal of controlling Greenland.
US lawmakers seek to block Trump’s threatened tariffs on European allies
Lawmakers from both parties promised legislative action to block Trump’s threatened tariffs against European allies on Monday, though Republicans willing to publicly break with the president on Greenland remain in short supply.
US justice department subpoenas Minnesota Democrats accused of impeding ICE efforts
The justice department subpoenaed several top officials in Minnesota on Tuesday as part of its investigation into whether Minneapolis officials have conspired to impede federal immigration efforts there. Among those officials are Jacob Frey, the Minneapolis mayor, and the Minnesota governor Tim Walz.
Wall Street sees worst day since October after Trump tariff threats
Stock markets fell on both sides of the Atlantic on Tuesday, with Wall Street suffering its worst day since October, as investor concerns persisted over the fallout from Trump’s push for US control of Greenland.
Catholic cardinals warn Trump’s foreign policy risks global suffering
Three cardinals in the US Catholic church have criticized the Trump administration’s foreign policy, saying its push to obtain or otherwise seize Greenland, recent military action in Venezuela and cuts to humanitarian aid risk “destroying international relations and plunging the world into incalculable suffering”.
JD and Usha Vance announce they’re expecting fourth child
Throughout his political career, the vice-president has repeatedly raised concerns about declining birth rates in the US, and in a speech at the anti-abortion March for Life rally last year, declared: “ I want more babies in the United States of America.”
Payphones linking liberal and conservative cities aim to bridge divides
Two experimental payphones – one placed in San Francisco and the other in Abilene, Texas – are connecting strangers across party lines, allowing callers to speak directly with Democrats and Republicans in two of the US’s most ideologically opposed cities.
What else happened today:
Nearly 400 millionaires and billionaires from 24 countries are calling on global leaders to increase taxes on the super-rich, amid growing concern that the wealthiest in society are buying political influence.
The US military said it seized another oil tanker with links to Venezuela on Tuesday, in the Caribbean Sea. The report marks the seventh such apprehension since the start of Donald Trump’s month-long campaign to control Venezuela’s oil flows.
The Trump administration won a legal victory on Monday that temporarily allows it to keep elected officials out of immigration detention camps, while it advanced two other court actions in support of its surge into Minnesota.
Federal immigration agents forced open a door and detained a US citizen in his Minnesota home at gunpoint without a warrant, then led him out on to the streets in his underwear in sub-freezing conditions, according to his family and videos reviewed by the Associated Press.
The UK will press ahead with plans to hand the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius despite Trump calling it an “act of great stupidity” and suggesting it was among the reasons he wanted to take over Greenland.
The conservative majority on the US supreme court appeared skeptical of a Hawaii law that bans people from bringing firearms on private property open to the public without permission from the property owner.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, has decried Europeans for their “complicity” in failing to stand up to Trump’s demands he be allowed to buy or annex Greenland.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 19 January 2026.
