When rumors first surfaced that Washington was again flirting with the idea of absorbing Greenland into the United States, many European officials treated them as another provocation in the familiar Donald Trump playbook. Then came the numbers. According to reports attributed to Reuters, U.S. policymakers were allegedly floating the idea of offering Greenlanders between 10,000 and 100,000 dollars per person in a referendum on joining the United States. Whether or not such figures ever existed in a concrete proposal, the reaction in Brussels, Copenhagen, and NATO headquarters has shifted from disbelief to wary realism: this time, Trump appears to mean it.
The debate has placed Europe in an uncomfortable position. For the first time in the alliance’s history, a NATO member is openly toying with the territorial acquisition of another NATO country’s territory. The treaties governing the alliance were written for threats from the outside, not for a scenario in which the strongest member flirts with the idea of coercing an ally. Europe now faces the question it has long postponed: what happens when the challenge to its sovereignty comes not from Moscow or Beijing, but from Washington?
The White House frames its interest in Greenland in the language of national security. Trump repeatedly points to the growing number of Russian and Chinese vessels in Arctic waters, warning of a looming strategic contest in the High North. From this perspective, Greenland is not a distant, sparsely populated island of ice and mountains; it is a forward operating base at the crossroads of transatlantic air routes, submarine cables, missile defense trajectories, and future shipping lanes opened by climate change.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has been quick to align himself with this framing. In a recent interview, he reminded audiences that the United States already has a defense agreement with Denmark dating back to 1951, and that Copenhagen has long been open to an expanded American military presence on Greenland. The Arctic, he argued, can only be secured through close transatlantic cooperation. True to his reputation, Rutte avoids any language that might antagonize Trump. During a White House visit months earlier, he went so far as to say that he did not want to “drag NATO” into the Greenland question at all.
That conciliatory tone is striking, because the situation is without precedent. The alliance has no rulebook for internal coercion. Its mechanisms for dispute resolution were designed for political disagreements, not for a scenario in which one ally dangles cash incentives and geopolitical pressure in front of another ally’s autonomous territory.
Some European analysts suspect that national security is only part of the story. Guntram Wolff of the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank argues that the Arctic could easily be defended through negotiations with Denmark under existing agreements. Instead, he suggests, Trump may be chasing something more personal: a place in history as the president who expanded the territorial footprint of the United States in dramatic fashion. In this reading, Greenland is not only a strategic asset but a monument to presidential ego.
Such speculation may sound psychological, but it matters politically. If the initiative were purely about countering Russia and China, a technocratic solution would be available. If it is about legacy, spectacle, and leverage, then Europe is dealing with a very different type of pressure.
Europe’s uneasy chorus
European reactions have been anything but unified. Denmark has condemned the idea of a takeover outright. Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez went further, calling such ambitions a “crime.” Yet at the European Commission level, the language has been noticeably softer. When Commission President Ursula von der Leyen addressed the handover of the EU Council presidency to Cyprus this week, she avoided direct confrontation. Instead, she spoke of principles:
“Our community is not perfect, but it is a promise that law is stronger than violence. Our principles do not apply only to the EU, but also to Greenland.”
It was a carefully crafted statement. Greenland, after all, is not an EU member. It is a self-governing part of the Kingdom of Denmark and belongs to the group of overseas countries and territories associated with the Union. Its people are European citizens, but its constitutional status is complex, and Brussels has traditionally treaded lightly.
This restraint, however, sits uneasily with the Union’s growing Arctic ambitions.
to be continued
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