When Donald Trump posted a picture of himself planting the American flag in Greenland in January 2026, which was produced by an AI algorithm, many Europeans thought it was a political gesture. However, the message accompanying the picture was quite different: “Greenland: US territory; Est. 2026.”
However, what happened next left no doubt that this was not a joke. Trump again reiterated that the United States would buy Greenland “one way or the other,” as the U.S. government must make sure that the Arctic island does not fall into the hands of Russia or China. A few days later, Trump imposed new tariffs on a number of European countries, including Denmark, in what was obviously a move related to the “purchase” of Greenland.
This was the first time in NATO history.
A threat from inside the alliance
Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The founding tenet of NATO is collective defense. This is to say that any attack on one member is an attack on all. For many years, this guarantee has protected Greenland from attack, first from the Soviet Union and then from Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
However, the problem now arises from within. The United States, the strongest NATO member and the principal security provider for Europe, is now publicly pressuring an ally over its sovereign territory. It is this that makes the current crisis more serious than previous transatlantic crises such as the Suez crisis or the Iraq War of 2003.
The logic behind Trump’s decision is geopolitics. Greenland is situated between North America and the Arctic, and this makes the country very valuable for the missile early warning system and the observation of polar sea routes. Greenland also has deposits of 36 million tons of rare earth minerals, which are currently under Chinese control. The US has a space base in Greenland named Pituffik Space Base and can send its military to the country under an agreement with Denmark.
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Europe’s strategic dilemma
The European leaders have registered their protest, but the question of retaliation is a complicated one. This is because Europe is extremely reliant on the American military presence. The US accounts for two-thirds of the NATO military expenditure, has the lion’s share of the missile defence and long-range strike capabilities, and has tens of thousands of troops stationed in Europe.
This dependence has only grown since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Europe needs a steady commitment of Trump administration support to keep Ukraine in the fight, and this is leverage Trump knows how to use. His skepticism of NATO and his penchant for hard politics make European governments have little choice.
French President Emmanuel Macron spoke of a “tendency towards a world without rules,” implicitly hinting that Europe could fall back on its economic strength, such as trade policy. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in turn, urged calm words, although he ruled out threats to the sovereignty of Greenland.
Turning NATO against NATO
Trump says he is still a loyal member of NATO. But by demanding that the alliance must submit to the seizure of Danish territory, Trump is actually setting NATO against itself. The threat to Europe is obvious: cross Trump too strongly and suffer the consequences of US retaliation, or submit to the idea that the guarantees of the alliance can be overruled by force.
The Greenland crisis is a symptom of a larger shift. “In Trump’s vision of the world,” Kagan continues, “alliances are a matter of transaction, sovereignty is a negotiable commodity, and might makes right.” The Greenland crisis is not just a Greenland crisis for Europe. It is a question of whether NATO can survive when its strongest member no longer honors the boundaries that made NATO viable in the first place.
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