Denmark summons American ambassador, after Trump appoints special envoy to “make Greenland a part of the US”

Left, Danish military forces participate in an exercise with troops from several European NATO members in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, Wednesday, September 17, 2025; Right, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry speaks to reporters at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, September 3, 2025. [AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi/Gerald Herbert]

US President Donald Trump’s appointment Sunday of a special envoy for Greenland underlines American imperialism’s abandonment of all restraints in pursuit of its interests and the deepening rift between Washington and its erstwhile European allies. Both Denmark, of which Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory, and the European Union (EU) responded angrily to the move, with Copenhagen summoning the US ambassador for the third time this year.

Announcing the appointment of Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry to the voluntary position, Trump wrote on social media, “Jeff understands how essential Greenland is to our national security.” Landry responded by expressing his “honour” at being able to serve the would-be dictator in the position “to make Greenland a part of the US.”

Emphasising his readiness once again to use military force to seize control of the island, Trump told a Monday press conference that since Denmark took control of Greenland 300 years ago with boats, the US could send its own boats there today. He asserted that the main reason behind his push to control the island was “national security,” warning against the presence of “Russian and Chinese ships” and denouncing Denmark for having “no money” and “no military” force in the region.

In a similar vein, the New York Times pointed out in its report that two of the other policy areas to which Trump has already appointed special envoys were the war in Ukraine against Russia and Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

Trump’s move must be assessed in the context of his administration’s National Security Strategy, which codified his “America first” foreign policy and preparations for world war. In a modernised version of the Monroe Doctrine, the document declared the Western Hemisphere to be “our hemisphere,” where the US would use all economic and military means at its disposal to keep all competitors out. To this end, Trump plans to annex Greenland and make Canada the 51st state to the north, and wage war on Venezuela to end Chinese and Russian influence in Latin America to the south. This mad plan sees US dominance over North and South America as the platform upon which a “successful” third world war can be conducted to defend global American imperialist hegemony.

The reaction of the European powers to Trump’s appointment of a special envoy for Greenland provides further confirmation that postwar transatlantic relations have broken down. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President Antonio Costa released statements almost simultaneously criticising Trump’s decision and insisting on the need to uphold “international law” on the sovereignty of states and inviolability of national borders.

This is rich coming from European imperialism, which over the past three decades has enthusiastically joined in wars of aggression against countries deemed to be obstacles to their interests. International law was not a problem when Germany led the charge together with the US to carve up the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, or when NATO backed the neocolonial occupation of Afghanistan, the illegal invasion of Iraq and the air war on Libya.

The European powers choose now to invoke “international law” because their interests collide with those of US imperialism. As Trump presses to secure an agreement with Russia at the European powers’ expense to end the war in Ukraine, the European imperialists are demanding a more aggressive rearmament drive to free themselves from dependence on the US when applying military pressure and waging war. They want to continue the war against Russia at all costs with the aim of subjugating it to the status of a semi-colony and ensuring that European banks and investors, not American ones, gain access to its raw materials and cheap labour.

But for the ruling class to accomplish its goals, it must destroy all of the remaining social programmes and other concessions made to the working class in the postwar period, making a dramatic intensification of the class struggle all but inevitable. The European powers are resorting to the same methods as Trump to accomplish this class war: authoritarian forms of rule, anti-immigrant witch-hunts and the gutting of social spending.

The Arctic is up for grabs in the escalating redivision of the world between the major powers. With control over Greenland, the US ruling class hopes to secure unhindered access to the vast natural resources on the island, which will become increasingly viable as climate change melts the ice that has to date prevented their exploitation. At the same time, Greenland occupies a strategically critical location between the North American continent and Russia that would give Washington a dominant position in managing the new sea lanes and exploitation of Arctic oil and gas being made possible as sea ice melts.

The European powers are direct competitors in this part of the world. Earlier this year, Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius visited Iceland to sign an agreement with Reykjavik to secure German submarine and ship access to the country’s ports. While Greenland is not a member of the EU due to its autonomous status within the Danish Kingdom, the European powers view it as their territory and have sought systematically over recent years to expand their presence on the island through investment initiatives and economic relations. When Trump threatened to use military force to seize Greenland earlier this year, the French foreign minister proposed sending European troops to the island, an initiative that was rebuffed by Denmark.

The Kingdom of Denmark established control over Greenland in 1725 and subsequently integrated it as a colony. The island proved to be a rich source of profits for Danish capitalists, initially through the trade in blubber and fish and later thanks to the exploitation of its mineral resources like cryolite. The island’s formal colonial status ended in 1953, but Copenhagen’s ruthless exploitation of the island’s resources and brutal treatment of its overwhelmingly Indigenous population continued for much of the 20th century. Greenland secured self-governing status in 1979 and additional autonomous powers in 2009, including control over its mineral wealth and the power to organise an independence referendum.

Denmark has worked to maintain a balancing act between its traditionally close alliance with American imperialism and its involvement in the European powers’ rearmament spree, a task that is becoming increasingly impossible. After World War II, during which the US operated numerous military bases on Greenland, Denmark was one of the closest European allies to the US throughout the Cold War. Copenhagen granted Washington virtually unlimited access to Greenland’s territory, where the US maintained its Thule Air Base and stored nuclear weapons. The country’s armed forces remain heavily integrated with the US military to this day.

In response to Trump’s threats to seize Greenland last January, Denmark announced the purchase of an additional 16 F-35 fighter jets from US producer Lockheed Martin for the specific purpose of expanding its military presence in the Arctic. A series of new military spending packages, including investments in naval vessels, drones and an expanded Arctic Command headquarters in Greenland, were also part of Copenhagen’s effort to placate Trump by demonstrating its readiness to use military force to protect their common interests in the region against potential rivals. In this way, Copenhagen hopes through its control over Greenland to maintain an Arctic presence, which would allow it to continue to punch above its weight in the economic exploitation of its resources and international relations more broadly given the country’s relatively small size.

That Trump is showing no inclination to accept Denmark’s offer to serve as a junior partner to American imperialism accounts for the angry reaction in Copenhagen. Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen declared he was “deeply upset” with Trump’s appointment of Landry as special envoy, while Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen called the move “totally unacceptable.”

Danish ruling circles have combined their outrage at potentially being cut out of the exploitation of the Arctic with hypocritical assertions of their deep commitment to the democratic rights of Greenlanders to determine their own future. A joint statement released by Denmark’s Social Democrat Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen declared, “You cannot annex other countries. Not even by invoking international security. Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders, and the United States must not take over Greenland.”

The sharpening rivalry between American imperialism and the European powers over Greenland and the Arctic is a conflict between competing imperialist predators. Workers in Europe and the US have no interest in lining up on either side. Trump’s provocative moves to seize Greenland produce justifiable anger, but they cannot be opposed by backing the former colonial exploiter Denmark or the major European powers seeking their own pound of flesh.

The response from the working class to the resurgence of great power conflicts in the Arctic and everywhere else around the world must be the development of a mass anti-war movement based on a socialist and internationalist programme to put an end to capitalism. Rejecting the capitalists’ insistence that workers pay with their jobs and livelihoods for ever larger rearmament programmes and wars of plunder, the international working class must link opposition to imperialist war with the fight to stop the destruction of jobs, public services and social programmes.