After Venezuela, Europeans think Trump may actually be serious.
Danish officials think they know how Donald Trump might seize Greenland. In a late-night Truth Social post, the president announces that the Danish territory is now an American “protectorate.” Because neither Denmark nor its European allies possess the military force to prevent the United States from taking the island, they are powerless to resist Trump’s dubious claim. And as the leading member of NATO claims the sovereign territory of another state, the alliance is paralyzed. Arguing that possession is nine-tenths of the law, Trump simply declares that Greenland now belongs to the United States.
This chain of events, which some Danish officials and security experts proposed to us in recent months, may have seemed faintly ridiculous as of last Friday. By the weekend—after the toppling of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Trump’s ensuing insistence that the United States now “runs” Venezuela—it seemed far less so. For months, Danes have anxiously imagined an audacious move by the Trump administration to annex Greenland, whether by force, coercion, or an attempt to buy off the local population of about 56,000 people with the promise of cutting them in on future mining deals. Now those fears are spiking.
Shortly after U.S. forces captured Maduro, Katie Miller, a former White House official who is married to the senior Trump aide Stephen Miller, posted on X a map of Greenland covered in the U.S. flag, with the caption “SOON.” Officials in Denmark told us that they were furious—and rattled. Then, yesterday morning, in an interview with our colleague Michael Scherer, Trump reasserted his intention to annex Greenland. “We do need Greenland, absolutely,” he said.
European leaders have long downplayed Trump’s acquisitive posture and tried to ignore his comments. Not after what happened in Venezuela. Today, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, argued that the president’s threats are credible. “Unfortunately, I think the American president should be taken seriously when he says he wants Greenland,” she told the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR).
U.S. officials and Trump allies we spoke with downplayed the possibility of military action in Greenland. (Stephen Miller told CNN’s Jake Tapper today that it would hardly be necessary. “No one is going to fight the U.S. militarily over the future of Greenland,” Miller said, reiterating that the territory should belong to the United States.) But Trump has pointedly not ruled out taking Greenland by force. And if the U.S. goes down that road, NATO will effectively cease to exist the moment the first military personnel enter Greenlandic territory.
“If the United States attacks another NATO country, everything stops,” Frederiksen said on DR.
The German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, made clear to reporters during a visit to Lithuania that Greenland falls under Article 5 of the alliance, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all, obligating other members to respond: “Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. And since Denmark is a member of NATO, Greenland will, in principle, also be subject to NATO defence.”
But how exactly would that play out in practice? One European official was blunt: “We won’t be able to defend Greenland. Are you kidding?”
Boosters of Trump’s Greenlandic ambitions are delighted by the Venezuela operation and by the president’s restated commitment to their cause. “I think it’s a big opportunity and a new beginning for Greenland, with Trump’s interest,” Jørgen Boassen, the president’s most prominent and vocal advocate in Greenland, told us. Boassen, known for his collection of MAGA hats and for wearing T-shirts with Trump’s face printed on them, said that Greenlanders yearn for independence from Denmark and from “Danish elites” in Greenland who don’t speak the native language or understand local culture.
