How far will Trump go with Greenland? The question haunts Denmark more than ever

Emergency meetings are multiplying in Copenhagen between the Danish political class and the Danish economic class, against the backdrop of a question that haunts them and remains without a firm answer: how far will Donald Trump go to seize Greenland?

We are likely to face a long and difficult periodwrote the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, in a long message published on the social network Facebook a few hours before the swearing-in, Monday, of the new President of the United States.

But no matter what he says in his speech, I expect that we Europeans will have to navigate a new reality.

Denmark and its autonomous territory, Greenland, were not mentioned in the president’s inauguration speech in Washington, as was Panama.

But once installed in the Oval Office in the evening, Donald Trump reaffirmed to journalists his interest in this Nordic territory, as he had done a week earlier.

Greenland is a wonderful place and we need it for security reasons. And I am convinced that Denmark will eventually accept.

In short, the blackmail is only just beginning and the Danish government is now preparing for any eventuality, its foreign minister conceded.

We cannot have a world order in which countries, if they are big enough, […] can use as they wisha mis en garde Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

A few hours later, a Republican elected official, Andy Ogles, announced on Fox News his intention to introduce a bill to ask Congress to support negotiations between President Trump and Denmark for the immediate acquisition of Greenland.

It may sound crazy, but we have been coveting Greenland for over 100 years. It’s on our doorstep, in our area of ​​operation, and we are the dominant predatorhe said, referring to the dangers posed by China and Russia in the Arctic.

If the political class in the Danish parliament remains polite in the hope of reasoning with the American president, Danish MEP Anders Vistisen issued a clearer warning on Wednesday in the European parliament, which earned him a recall to order.

Dear President Trump, listen very carefully: Greenland has been part of the Danish Kingdom for 800 years. It is an integral part of our country and is not for sale. Let me tell you in words you could understand: Mr. Trump, fuck you!

There is no longer any doubt that the concerns of Danes of all parties go beyond Trump’s public comments, as there are also those he made last Thursday, in private, during a telephone exchange with the prime minister.

Mette Frederiksen came away shaken. During this one-hour conversation, the president reiterated his threats of a trade war if Denmark did not cede Greenland to him.

Donald Trump also, according to the Prime Minister, refused to withdraw his comment of January 7, wanting him not to rule out the possibility of using force to annex it.

President Trump seems to ignore the fact that Greenland is neither for sale nor for giving away.

The largest island in the world, increasingly prized for its natural riches, is an autonomous territory and master of his destiny the Danish authorities and those of Greenland (where the United States already has a strategic military base) have repeatedly said.

The new president has clearly linked the fate and future of Greenland to economic sanctions against Denmark, or even to some kind of military action. This is a situation we have never seen before from an American president, everinsisted Lukas Lausen, analyst and head of exports and investment at the Confederation of Danish Industry. And that is, of course, something that concerns us greatly.

Even repeating President Trump’s threats out loud seems completely absurd to him, because the United States represents Denmark’s largest export market, in addition to being a strategic ally since the 1940s in matters of defense and security.

Additionally, both countries are founding members of NATO.

Regardless, everything indicates that the island has become one of the main pawns of the Trump administration’s expansionist policies and tariff threats.

Denmark has become, in a way, the symbol of the trade conflict that the new president seems to want to have with Europe. This is a serious situation.

And it is, according to him, absolutely necessary to resolve the situation in the first weeks of the Trump administration to prevent it from degenerating and so that the fate of Greenland is recognized as being in the sole hands of the Greenlanders.

Free trade between the three trading partners of the European Union, the United States and Denmark cannot be called into question by gambling with the future of Greenland, he concludes.

Just like Canada, to which President Trump is threatening to impose tariffs on its exports, Denmark is preparing its response in the event of a trade conflict.

As a member of the European Union, Denmark can only hope for mobilization from its allies, several of whom, such as France and Germany, are also threatened with seeing their exports subject to new tariffs.

Two years ago, the European Union adopted a policy to comprehensively counter any attempt at economic coercion by a third country.

The policy allows the 27 member countries to adopt countermeasures if the targeted country fails to defuse the crisis.

It remains to be seen whether there is an opening to negotiate with Donald Trump, who maintains he needs Greenland for strategic reasons.

In the meantime, the Danish government has committed to the United States to strengthen the defense of Greenland, to the tune of one and a half billion euros.

However, what happens next remains unpredictable, as does the new president’s European agenda and the form that his doctrine of America first and at all costs will take.