While Donald Trump does not rule out annexing Greenland by force and Elon Musk interferes in the internal politics of the Europeans, the latter limit themselves to recalling that the United States is their ally. But don’t Trump and his team consider the Union more of a rival?
The question of territorial expansion illustrates a qualitative transformation of Donald Trump’s position on the functioning of the transatlantic relationship. Since the Second World War, it has been a very strong and integrated alliance which, although it recognizes the United States as the central pole, is based on consultation. However, if today Trump wants to impose on one of his main allies, Denmark, the capture of a territory, we must see it as a rite of initiation into a new regime where the alliance is only transactional. , unilateral and fundamentally asymmetrical. NATO, as Olivier Schmitt noted, would become the Warsaw Pact, with a single truly sovereign state and satellites. If the metropolis asks you to, you must give in. This poses a difficult question: can we buy armaments from a power that may find itself in a position of rivalry so accentuated that it claims sovereignty over territories that do not belong to it? Ultimately, we will be asked whether or not to accept being explicitly placed in a situation of vassalization.
