Europe moves to counter Trump's Greenland plans — Politico

"We must be ready for a direct confrontation with Trump. He is in an aggressive mode, and we need to be geared up," says an EU diplomat familiar with the ongoing discussions.

Yesterday, January 7, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he plans to discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States with Danish officials next week.

The White House says Trump prefers to acquire the Arctic island through negotiations and will consider buying Greenland, but a military takeover is not out of the question.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said that he and his colleagues from Germany and Poland had discussed a joint European response to Trump's threats.

Politico spoke with officials, diplomats, experts, and NATO insiders to find out how Europe can prevent the US President from going too far and what options it has if Trump does go through with it.

4 options Europe could save Greenland from Trump

Option 1: Find compromise

Trump claims that Greenland is critical to US security interests and accuses Denmark of not doing enough to protect the island from increased military activity by China and Russia in the Arctic.

Negotiations that result in Trump coming away with something he can sell as a victory, while Denmark and Greenland save face, are probably the quickest way out of this situation.

A former senior NATO official has suggested that the alliance act as a mediator between Greenland, Denmark, and the US, as it did during disputes between NATO members Türkiye and Greece.

US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said on Wednesday that Trump and his advisers do not consider Greenland to be sufficiently protected.

NATO allies are also considering new proposals to Trump that could strengthen the Arctic island's security, despite widespread belief that any direct threat from Russian and Chinese ships to the territory is exaggerated.

Among other proposals, according to three NATO diplomats, the alliance should consider accelerating defense spending in the Arctic, conducting more military exercises in the region, and deploying troops to secure Greenland and reassure the US if necessary.

According to the diplomats, the Alliance should also be open to creating an Arctic Sentry scheme — moving its military assets to the region — similar to the Eastern Sentry and Baltic Sentry initiatives.

"Anything that can be done" to bolster the alliance’s presence near Greenland and meet Trump’s demands "should be maxed out," says the NATO diplomat.

Trump also claims he wants to acquire Greenland because of its vast mineral resources and potential oil and gas reserves. But there is a reason why Greenland's reserves remain largely untapped: extracting resources from the island's inhospitable terrain is difficult and very expensive, making them less competitive than Chinese imports.

Danish ambassadors say they have been calling for investment in Greenland for years, but their European counterparts have been unreceptive to these calls — although one EU diplomat said there are signs of a shift in that position.

Option 2: Give Greenland huge amount of money

The Trump administration has supported the movement for Greenland's independence. The argument is that if the Arctic territory leaves the Kingdom of Denmark and signs an agreement with the US, it will be flooded with American money.

Although Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out the use of military force to seize the island, he has also insisted that he wants everything to happen voluntarily.

The EU and Denmark are trying to convince the people of Greenland that they can offer them better terms.

According to a draft proposal by the European Commission published in September, Brussels plans to more than double spending on Greenland from 2028 as part of long-term budget plans developed after Trump began claiming the territory belonged to Denmark.

Under these plans, which are subject to further negotiations between member states, the EU will almost double its spending on Greenland to €530 million over seven years starting in 2028. This is in addition to the funds that Denmark provides to Greenland under an agreement with the self-governing territory.

Under the same proposal, Greenland will also be eligible to apply for additional EU funding of €44 million for remote territories linked to European countries.

Currently, support from Denmark and the EU is focused primarily on social security, health care, education, and the island's environmental transformation. Under the new spending plans, this support will be extended to the development of mineral extraction opportunities.

"We have a lot of people living below the poverty line, Greenland's infrastructure is lagging behind, and our resources are mostly extracted without significant profit for Greenland, but with great profit for Danish companies," says Greenlandic opposition MP Kuno Fencker, who advocates for the island's independence.

An attractive offer from Denmark and the EU may be enough to keep Greenlanders from falling under American influence.

Option 3: Economic countermeasures

According to military expert Thomas Crosbie, since Trump's first presidency, "there's been a lot of effort to try and think through how we ensure European security, Nordic security, Arctic security, without the U.S. actively involved."

"That's hard, but it's possible. But I don't know if anyone has seriously contemplated ensuring European security against America. It's just crazy," Crosbie says.

The EU has one powerful political tool that could be used to deter the US President: an anti-coercion tool, the "trade bazooka," created after Trump's first term in the White House, which allows the EU to take countermeasures in response to trade discrimination.

The EU threatened to use this tool after Trump imposed tariffs, but postponed the decision in July after the parties reached an agreement. Since the US is still imposing tariffs against the EU, Brussels may use the "bazooka."

"We have exports to the United States a bit above €600 billion, and for around one-third of those goods we have a market share of more than 50 percent and it's totally clear that this is also the power in our hands," says Bernd Lange, chairman of the European Parliament's Trade Committee.

But Trump must be sure that the EU is serious, given that last time all the tough statements from the European Union had no consequences.

Option 4: Troop deployment

If the US does decide to seize Greenland by military force, there is little Europeans can do to prevent it.

"They are not going to preemptively attack Americans before they claim Greenland, because that would be done before an act of war. But in terms of responding to the first move, it really depends. If the Americans have a very small group of people, you could try and arrest those people, because there'd be a criminal act," Crosbie says.

It's a different story, he says, if the US takes tough measures.

From a legal standpoint, Denmark may be forced to respond with military action: according to a standing decree from 1952, the country's troops must "immediately take up the fight without waiting for, or seeking orders" in "the event of an attack on Danish territory."

European countries should consider deploying troops to the Arctic island if Denmark requests it to increase the potential costs of US military action, the EU diplomat says, reiterating suggestions that Berlin and Paris could send troops to deter any invasion.

Although these forces are unlikely to be able to resist a US invasion, they will act as a deterrent.

"You could have a tripwire effect where you have some groups of people who are physically in the way, like a Tiananmen Square-type situation, which would potentially force the [U.S.] military to use violence or to back down. This is completely unexplored territory, but it is quite possible that people's lives will be lost in the attempt to reject the American claim over Greenland," Crosbie warns.

Trump wants to seize Greenland

The topic of Greenland was back in the spotlight after Katie Miller, wife of US Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, posted an image of a map of the island colored in the colors of the US flag.

The next day, Trump told reporters that he intended to talk about Greenland in 20 days and reiterated that the US absolutely needed this Danish territory, as the island was allegedly surrounded by the Russian and Chinese fleets.

These words came less than a day after a US special operation in Venezuela, during which Nicolás Maduro and his wife were detained.

The events caused concern in Denmark and Greenland itself, which is a semi-autonomous territory of the Danish kingdom and a member of NATO.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that if the US attacks Greenland, it would mean the end of NATO.

At the same time, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ruled out the possibility of a US military invasion of Greenland following the Venezuelan scenario.

RBC-Ukraine explained why Trump is eyeing Greenland and how this situation threatens the world and Ukraine in particular.