Europe set up a showdown with Donald Trump after its leaders joined Canada and Denmark to rally behind Greenland, insisting it “belongs to its people” as the US president renewed threats to annex the strategic, mineral-rich island.
The major clash between long-term allies came while 27 heads of state and government, including military officials and two US envoys, gathered in Paris to determine Ukraine’s security guarantees following any potential peace deal with Russia.
It is a tinderbox point of contention between the continent and the US, which has piled pressure on Ukraine to cede territory to Russia and agree to truce conditions many Ukrainians see as an effective surrender.
Despite backlash from Europe the White House insisted on Tuesday it is "discussing options for acquiring Greenland".
"President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it's vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region,” the Trump administration said in a statement.
“The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilising the US military is always an option at the commander-in-chief's disposal,” the statement added.
Earlier on Tuesday, leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain had joined Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen in defending Greenland’s sovereignty.
“Greenland belongs to its people,” the statement said. “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney later echoed the same point ahead of the Paris gathering, telling reporters in the capital: “The future of Greenland is a decision exclusively for the people of Greenland and Denmark.”
Rose Gottemoeller, who served as deputy secretary general of Nato during Mr Trump’s first administration, told The Independent that the most powerful member of Nato positioning itself as a “hostile actor” was putting the alliance through an “existential” crisis which posed the greatest threat to law-governed order since the Second World War.
“To ask the US military to attack a US ally, a legal treaty ally, and take over the island of Greenland from our Danish ally crosses the red line of legality,” she said.
“Denmark was one of the original members of Nato. We've been allies for a long, long time. It would be unprecedented.”
“It is essentially back to a ‘might is right’ kind of approach,” she continued.
The world’s largest island is a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark and thus part of the Nato military alliance.
Mr Trump has in recent days repeated that he is seeking an American takeover, an idea first voiced in 2019 during his first presidency.
He argues it is vital for the US military, as the strongest member of Nato, in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic, and that Denmark has not done enough to protect it.
Ms Frederiksen said that a US takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of Nato.
But Mr Trump told reporters on Sunday: “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it. It’s so strategic right now.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller echoed the president on Monday: “You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else but we live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”
Mr Miller then questioned Denmark’s control over Greenland in an interview with CNN: “What is the basis of their territorial claim? What is their basis of having Greenland as a colony of Denmark?”
The tensions between allies threw considerable pressure on Tuesday’s delicate diplomatic balancing act in Paris. The continent also needs US military might to back up Ukrainian security guarantees and ward off Russia’s territorial ambitions.
In the meeting the UK and France announced it would deploy troops and build military hubs in Ukraine as the vital security guarantee in the event of a ceasefire with Russia. Donald Trump’s two envoys, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, attended the meeting and confirmed the mechanism would be backed by the US but offered no concrete details.
The Trump administration has clearly turned its attentions away from Ukraine and towards Latin America with its military engagement in Venezuela.
Over the weekend, it launched an unprecedented military operation on the capital, capturing the country’s authoritarian leader, who has already appeared in court in New York on “narco-terrorism” charges.
He has since threatened Venezuela’s neighbour Colombia, accusing its president Gustavo Petro of also being involved in drugs trafficking, a charge the leftist leader furiously denies.
In the Colombian capital Bogota, Carolina Corcho, a leading politician, former minister and associate of Mr Petro, warned Europe that if the US president is allowed to continue unchecked, the continent could be next, especially after his threats towards Greenland.
“The United States was able to return Latin America and the world to pre-World War II conditions by kidnapping a president and bombing a city,” she told The Independent.
“If it can happen in Venezuela, it can happen anywhere – in Europe or even the UK.”
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