This Greenland story keeps (d)evolving, so here are the top four quotes you should know:
- “On Greenland, the right way to approach an issue of this seriousness is through calm discussion between allies” — Sir Keir Starmer, UK Prime Minister
Off-ramps. Dialogue. Closed doors. That’s Starmer’s approach to Trump 2.0, and reportedly produced a Trump concession that the US leader might’ve gotten “bad information” about NATO’s Greenland exercises, after Starmer insisted these were just a response to Trump’s Arctic concerns. That’s the closest to de-escalation we’ve seen.
But as for the Danish owners of Greenland? Foreign Minister Rasmussen emerged from closed-door talks with his US counterpart (Rubio) and VP Vance last week, dragging deeply on a carpark ciggie before noting it’s clear Trump has a “wish of conquering Greenland”. The shocked Danes are now ditching this week’s Davos (where Trump is due).
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- “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace” — Donald J. Trump, US President
Imagine getting that text from the US president. Trump fired it off to Norway’s PM after the Norwegians and Finns proposed a call to de-escalate. The phone call idea might’ve landed better if coming directly from Finland’s Stubb (who Trump famously likes).
Still, the short exchange purports to spell out both Trump’s end-game (“Complete and Total Control of Greenland”) and justifications: a) this Nobel snub, b) protect Greenland from China and Russia, c) questioning Denmark’s legal ownership, and d) NATO owes us.
So how are others responding to all this…?
- “We simply want to try to resolve this problem together, and the American government knows that we could also retaliate” — Friedrich Merz, German Chancellor
The US holds more cards, but the Europeans can inflict pain — we saw that in the anti-coercion package they cooked up (then shelved) amid last year’s US-EU trade talks: this could again target Trump’s base, whether via the tech broligarchs or products like Harley-Davidsons and bourbon (Jim Beam halted output at its main Kentucky site last month).
But we’re already seeing the risks for Europe, too — Germany’s Merz is reportedly wary of pulling that particular trigger given Germany’s own export exposure to the US.
Meanwhile, a top Deutsche Bank exec has flagged the possibility of Europe retaliating by selling its US stocks and bonds, though most of those assets are in private funds.
As for China…?
- “We urge the US side to stop using the so-called ‘China threat’ as a pretext to pursue selfish gains” — China’s foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun
It was Napoleon (not Sun Tzu) who famously quipped to “never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”, but it seems Mr Guo just couldn’t help himself.
Intrigue’s Take
We’ve previously explored the strategic reasons why US leaders have looked longingly at Greenland for more than a century, but the only winners in this latest approach might end up being the two autocrats Trump says he’s trying to stop: whether Putin or Xi, they now get to watch while the very thing they lack and fear (a vast alliance network) wobbles under the weight of a needless crisis that arguably just normalises (and distracts from) their own rogue territorial ambitions:
- Recall the US can already jam Greenland with bases under its existing treaty, and
- If this is about Russia (as the US president just tweeted), why use the kiddie gloves on the Russians in Ukraine, let alone invite Putin to the Gaza peace board? And why are Putin’s ultra-nationalists like Dugin tweeting gleefully about all this transatlantic disunity rather than fretting about getting outplayed in the Arctic?
We try to rise above each day’s hyperbole to explore the bigger picture, but it’s hard to see this just blowing over in Europe, even if the mid-terms end up clipping Trump’s wings — some within his party are already warning these Greenland headlines won’t help.
Sound even smarter:
- Keep an eye on US markets reopening today (Tuesday) after MLK Day, with US bond yields already spiking in early Asia trading — it’s part of a broader global selloff as rattled markets grapple with the prospect of a revived US-EU trade war.
