Anne Applebaum has a useful, brief polemic on the literal looniness of Trump’s threats to seize Greenland by force from the Kingdom of Denmark. She quotes in full his brief letter to Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway, bizarrely citing the decision of the Nobel Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to someone other than Donald Trump as justification for US military seizure of Greenland:
Yet what matters isn’t the specific phrases, but the overall message: Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him. Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for an invasion of Greenland. [my emphasis] (1)
The British Channel 4 has this report on the current situation: (2)
There is a famous quotation apocryphally attributed to the California writer Ambrose Bierce: “Wars are God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” (With various versions of itself.)
I was reminded of that in the various media discussions about Greenland. “By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?” asked Trump’s Joseph Goebbels clone Stephen Miller recently. (1)
In the Miller-Goebbels world, reality including history is whatever cult leader Trump says it is at any given moment.
Actual information about Greenland is not that hard to find. Chatham House’s Marc Weller gives a brief historical sketch of Greenland’s affiliation to Denmark, which claims to have administered the island since 1721. Norway disputed Denmark’s claim to colonial control over Greenland early in the last century. As Weller notes, “the Permanent Court of International Justice ruled in 1933 that Norway’s Foreign Minister Nils Claus Ihlen had given up any claim to Greenland. He had declared in 1919 that the Danish claim ‘would be met with no difficulties on the part of Norway’.” (2)
The UN recognized in 1954 that Greenland had “become an integral part of the Danish Realm with a constitutional status equal to that of other parts of Denmark” based on changes put in place the previous year. (3) And, as Weller writes:
Denmark ... has progressively increased the level of self-government for Greenland, first in the Home Rule Act of 1979 and then in the Self-Government Act of 2009. This latter instrument was approved in a Greenland referendum by a majority of 75.5 per cent.
The Self-Government Act transfers virtually all powers of governance to the Greenland local authorities, with the exception of defence, monetary policy and external relations. In fact, Greenland can even conclude treaties independently of Denmark. However, this does not extend to agreements affecting its status within Denmark. [my emphasis]
Miller-Goebbel‘s view, of course, is: Trump don’t need no stinking international law. Trump want Greenland so Trump take it!! (The Incredible Hulk theory of international law.)
Encyclopedia Britannica provides a brief quick history of Greenland, though Stephen Miller probably assumes Britannica is just some woke commie propaganda outlet: (4)
The particular status of Greenland within the Kingdom of Denmark is a little odd compared to how most people are used to thinking about sovereign countries. But it also doesn’t take a PhD in international law to understand the quirks, either.
Denmark is a kingdom, a monarchy ruled by King Frederik X since January of 2024. Greenland is a self-governing province. Its population is small, just under 57,000 people, a number which Goebbels-Miller in the clip above cites as 30,000. (Math, apparently is nothing but some “DEI” obsession in his eyes.
Greenland is a self-governing autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, which has a parliamentary government. The Danish parliament is called the Folketag, which has 179 member including two members elected by Greenlanders and one from the Faroe Islands.
The Nordic Co-operation website provides this bullet-point summary:
Greenland is not a member of the EU but has a special fisheries agreement and was accepted as one of the overseas countries and territories with special association with the EU.
National day: 21 June (longest day of the year)
Form of government: Self-government, within the kingdom of Denmark
[Provincial] Parliament: Inatsisartut (31 seats)
EU membership: From 1 January 1973 to 1 February 1985
NATO membership: Since 1949 (as part of Denmark’s membership)
But, as noted above, Norway’s king and Folketag are in charge of defense, foreign relations, and currency policy. One oddity is that Greenland can conclude treaties with other countries on its own as long as they don’t affect its legal relationship with Denmark. Although that could be seen as analogous to a US state making a pact with a foreign government, which would not formally and legally be a treaty.
The Self-Government Act of 2009 mentioned above allows Greenland to declare itself an independent nation on the basis of an independence referendum. If a majority votes for such a referendum, the Danish Folketag would have final say on whether Greenland’s independence would be recognized.
Greenland is specifically covered by the NATO mutual-defense treaty, which means any forcible occupation of the island by the US or any other nation would be formal grounds for invoking the collective self-defense clause against the invader. Since Denmark is not technically part of the EU, such an invasion would not necessarily trigger the EU mutual-defense clause.
Huw Paige has a useful summary of the Trump regime’s recent posturing over Greenland:
Arguments [from the Trump Administration] of security threats around Greenland from Russia and China are illogical. Russia has no great presence in the vicinity of Greenland, and China’s motivations in the Arctic center around the reduction in shipping time and costs offered by the Northern Sea Route along the Russian coast. In any case, China has backed off far more in Greenland in recent years than it has in, for example, Alaska. (6)
Notes:
(1) Miller asserts Trump administration’s position is Green should be part of the US. ABC Chicago YouTube channel, n/d, <https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SdhZ9vKGNq0> (Accessed: 2026-12-01).
The Trump Administration has revived its imperialist fantasies about taking over Greenland from Denmark, which is an autonomous territory (province) of the nation of Denmark. (1)
If you’re wondering about the title of this post, no, I’m not spending Christmas in Greenland. Or in any other part of Denmark.
But the Trump 2.0 regime has revived its threats against Denmark to seize Greenland from it. Trump himself seems to become more unpredictable and less coherent by the day. But at this point, Denmark and its European allies have to assume that Trump will continue to pressure Denmark over Greenland. And they can’t ignore the repeated threats by the US to take military action to do so. Despite the fact that Greenland has had very close security cooperation with the US since the end of the Second World War.
Trump has appointed the Republican Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, as a “special envoy” to the Danish province of Greenland. Special envoys these days are often appointed as specialists for particular issues. Landry has initially been pretty explicit about his view of the goal is the seizure of Danish territory:
In response to a question from the BBC about the new role of Jeff Landry, the Republican governor of Louisiana, Trump said the US needed Greenland for "national protection" and that "we have to have it".
Landry, he said, would "lead the charge" as special envoy to Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
The move has angered Copenhagen, which said it would call the US ambassador for "an explanation". Greenland's prime minister said the island must "decide our own future" and its "territorial integrity must be respected".
Gov Landry said in a post on X that it was an honour to serve in a "volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the US". ...
He has refused to rule out using force to secure control of the island, a stance that has shocked Denmark, a Nato ally that has traditionally enjoyed close relations with Washington.
"We'll have to work that out," Trump added. "We need Greenland for national security, not minerals." [my emphasis] (2)
Polls in Greenland show that a majority of its 57 thousand citizens would prefer to be an independent nation. But if anyone imagines that Trump’s territorial ambitions there are have anything to do with anti-imperialist principles of international law, well, they’re wrong. The Kingdom of Denmark is a country but not a federation. Greenland would have the formal option to secede and become an independent country like Iceland did in 1944. But Denmark’s Act on Greenland Self-Government of 2009 requires that a majority of the Danish Parliament, the Folketing, would have to approve it. A voluntary secession of Greenland to become a territory of the United States is highly unlikely. Greenland has more political clout over issues like the use of Greenlandic resources than it would ever have as a US state with a much smaller population than Wyoming, much less as a formal US territory, or with a Commonwealth status like Puerto Rico.
Of course, as an independent nation of 57,000 would be taking a huge risk in dealing with a rogue US government without being part of Denmark.
Gov. Landry is not especially fond of this whole rule-of-law things even in his own American state. As Charlie Pierce noted in April, “The state of Louisiana is on something of a law-and-order binge these days. Governor Jeff Landry is hot to kill more people. And the state also seems to be bound and determined to keep prisoners in prison by any means necessary, including faceless algorithms.” (3)
Oh, about those “information operations” that countries conduct against each other: “Denmark summoned the US chargé d’affaires in August [2025] for an urgent meeting over an alleged influence campaign after at least three US men with ties to Trump and the White House were accused of trying to infiltrate Greenlandic society.” (4)
Geopolitics happen
Greenland is important to US security. This is not new. And the US has long had a record of working with NATO ally Denmark to secure those interests. This map gives a good illustration of Greenland’s geographical position in between Russia and the US, including the location of the key US Thule Airbase: (5)
There has been some not-implausible speculation that part of Trump’s obsession with annexing Greenland may have to do with looking at flat maps of the Western Hemisphere, which makes Greenland look more gigantic than it is. But it is the world’s biggest island, and Greenland is “[m]ore than three times the size of the U.S. Texas. (6)
The Pituffik Space Base, plays a “crucial role in defense against missiles coming in from anywhere between North Korea and the Kola Peninsula, where Russian nuclear weapons are. So …, the nuclear posture of those two incidentally involves the Arctic in security dynamics that are not about the Arctic as such.” (7)
The caption to the map above notes:
The fastest way between the population centers in the US and the Soviet Union was via the North Pole and Greenland was, thus, the outermost outpost of the West towards the East [during the Cold War]. This explains the great interest of the US to have airbases here. …
it was first and foremost the Danish empire and not Denmark proper that was a member of the Western defense alliance. In recent years, the melting of the ice at the North Pole as a consequence of increased global heating has enabled new ship lanes and made a number of natural resources (minerals, oil) in Greenland and in the waters off Greenland accessible and possible to exploit. This has opened up for a number of economic opportunities in the Arctic, not only for Greenland, but also for great powers such as the US, Russia and China.
As Marc Jacobsen observed, Trump’s first-term fantasies about Greenland have intensified under Trump 2.0: “The first time – in the summer of 2019 – his idea of buying [Greenland] quickly fizzled out, but this time his interest is much more persistent and deeper.” (8)
Jacobsen goes on to recount some of the recent very ways that Denmark has used Trump’s demands to negotiate benefits for itself:
Even though Trump’s idea [of buying Greenland] was decisively rejected, since then [2019] there have been various concrete initiatives with the goal of strengthening the presence of the USA in Greenland and the bilateral relationships. Most notable were the opening of a US Consulate in the year 2020 and an economic package in the amount of $12.1 million, which would be invested to provide American consultant services for developing Greenland’s mining industry, tourism and education. At the same time, the role of Greenland on the international stage was strengthened, in that it was recognized as partner to be taken as an equal. These were reinforced in the following years among other ways by official state visits in Washington, D.C., Copenhagen and Nuuk.
This kind of thing was actually a continuation of the ways that Denmark has used its strategic position to gain benefits and secure its own place in the international system.
Here the stunning incompetence of Trump 2.0’s diplomacy shows itself again. Denmark has been very cooperative with the US for decades in cooperating on strategic security concerns. Here it seems that the old saying “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” would seem to be good advice for the US. But Trump’s team seems more oriented to the TechBro version, “If it’s not broke, break it.” Which was a predecessor of the “move fast and break things” motto.
But in general, it’s not a promising way to conduct diplomacy. Or, as Jacobsen puts it:
[T]he US already exercises de facto military control over Greenland, which plays an important role in deterring global and regional threats. In case the US wants to increase its military presence, that is already possible within the scope of existing defense treaties, and the government in Nuuk [Greenland] and Copenhagen should want to keep a door open for such a wish – above all, when it benefits Greenland.
As the leading military power in the world, it would in fact be easy for the US to march into Greenland, where they already have a strong military presence at their disposal. Should it do that, it would nevertheless encounter rejection by large parts of the world community, which would react sharply to such an aggressive and imperialist undertaking.
The problem is, of course, is that we have a government led by people such as Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth who don’t seem to be able to evaluate alternatives on big policies all that well. If the Trump 2.0 regime is really serious about what they projected in their 2025 National Security Strategy – treating European allies as enemies and trying to replace their governments with pro-Putting ones – then blatant and illegal military aggression against a long-standing and important ally like Denmark might strike them as a dandy idea.
(2) Landale, James & Hagan, Rachel (2025): Trump says US 'has to have' Greenland after naming special envoy. BBC News 12/22/2025. <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgmd132ge4o> (Accessed: 20258-23-12).
At one level this is just plain dumb. But dumb and reckless are what a plurality of American voters selected to be President for a second time. (1)
I’m sure the Proud Boys and the rest of the Trumpistas will continue to giggle over how their Mighty Hero Trump is “owning the libs” by saying crazy and irresponsible stuff.
But Trump is literally threatening – or, as Deutsche Welle report says, “has refused to rule out military force to gain control of the Panama Canal, and Greenland.” Trump is quoted in the report:
Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes.” I've been told that for a long time long before I even ran I mean people have been talking about it for a long time you have approximately 45,000 people there people really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it but if they do they should give it up because we need it for national security. That's for the Free World, I'm talking about protecting the Free World.
As the report also describes, Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO ally. That means an ally in a mutual-defense treaty. Trump is clearly threatening to go to war against a NATO ally in order to force them to cede Greenland to the US. None of the MAGA zealots are likely to ask questions beyond that, they’re just enjoying the reality show.
In fact, France – currently the one nuclear power in the EU – and even Germany are at least in diplomatic rhetoric taking the threat seriously:
Germany and France have warned Donald Trump against any attempt to “move borders by force” after the incoming US president said he was prepared to use economic tariffs or military might to seize control of Danish-administered Greenland.
In a hastily called televised statement, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said Trump’s remarks had triggered “incomprehension” among European leaders. “The principle of the inviolability of borders applies to every country – regardless of whether it is east of us or to the west – and every state must respect that, regardless of whether it is a small country or a very powerful state.”
Earlier, the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said that Europe would stand up in defence of international law. “There is no question of the EU letting other nations in the world, whoever they may be, attack its sovereign borders.”
Barrot added on France Inter radio, that, while he did not believe the US “would invade” Greenland, “we have entered an era that is seeing the return of the law of the strongest”. (2)
The MAGA crowd will probably take this as another “freedom fries” moment. (3)
NATO countries are heavily dependent in the current treaty arrangements on US support for defense against any possible Russian aggression. NATO has a long history and there is lots than can be said about it good and bad. But that’s the current alliance system. And the incoming US President is threatening war against another of the NATO allies. He may just be throwing out rhetorical chum for the MAGA crowd to pleasure themselves with.
But this is a very practical signal to EU countries that they need to move to decouple their own defense as much as possible from the United States. That means, among other things, they should not commit military support for whatever military adventurism the US has in mind for Asia or the Near East.
Trump is not only threatening the nations of Denmark and Panama with hostile military action – Trump’s not-so-MAGA predecessor George H.W. Bush made a blatantly illegal regime-change invasion of Panama in 1989 with no more regard for the so-called “rules-based international order” than Trump shows – he’s threatening NATO ally Canada and the non-NATO nation of Mexico with invasion and even annexation.
Another important factor is that the European allies have militaries that are heavily integrated with the US military. It doesn’t prevent them from acting independently, as France has been doing in various countries of Africa with tacit US consent. But there is only a nominal common European military capacity, the European Defence Agency (EDA). (4)
If defense against a potentially aggressive Russia is a European priority, current NATO ally Britain could be a potential part of the European-centered mutual defense structure. But Britain has basically since the Suez crisis of 1956, Britain has been very consistent in not wanting to wind up on the opposite side of the US on any major foreign policy question. (The British government was critical at times of US policy in the Vietnam War, but they were not actively involved in the Vietnam War in the way they were in their joint action with France and Israel in invading Egypt during the Suez Crisis, where they were on the other side of the US position.)
The “restrainer”-oriented website Responsible Statecraft has an analysis by Joanna Rozpedowski that strikes me as a bit odd. (5) But basically, she’s giving a kind of best-case statement of how Trump’s threats against Denmark and Panama might be justified.
Not surprisingly, the EU Commission initially tried to publicly duck the issue.
Although the Commission confirmed that any military action against Greenland would activate the EU's mutual assistance clause in Article 42(7) of the Treaty, it refused to answer whether it assesses that there's a real risk of the U.S. invading Denmark's overseas territory, calling the case “very theoretical.” (6)
Yes, it’s not often mentioned, but the EU Treaty does have a mutual-defense clause. And, at least on its face, its more binding than the NATO Treaty.
