{"id":702164,"date":"2026-01-17T13:23:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/702164\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T13:23:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:23:16","slug":"belgium-downplays-greenland-tension-with-uncle-sam-as-europe-steps-up-presence-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/702164\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgium downplays Greenland tension with \u2018Uncle Sam\u2019 as Europe steps up presence \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u201cThis is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/denmark-allies-boost-greenland-military-presence-donald-trump-ramps-up-pressure\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/denmark-allies-boost-greenland-military-presence-donald-trump-ramps-up-pressure\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reconnaissance mission<\/a>,\u201d he said, stressing there is no permanent deployment or combat posture planned.<\/p>\n<p>The move comes as Denmark and a growing group of European allies <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/denmark-allies-boost-greenland-military-presence-donald-trump-ramps-up-pressure\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">step up military activity in and around Greenland<\/a>, expanding exercises and troop presence at Copenhagen\u2019s request.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Denmark has said the goal is to strengthen Arctic security and allies&#8217; ability to operate in extreme conditions, with officers and small detachments already arriving from several European countries.<\/p>\n<p>But the deployments are unfolding against an unusually volatile political backdrop. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly raised the prospect of taking control of Greenland, and earlier this month he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/donald-trump-interview-us-greenland-grab-nato-preservation-choice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said it \u201cmay be a choice\u201d for Washington<\/a> between seizing the island and preserving NATO.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trump also dismissed international law constraints, saying he did not \u201cneed\u201d them.<\/p>\n<p>Francken framed Europe\u2019s response as reassurance rather than deterrence. The message to Washington, he said, is that Europeans are prepared to take responsibility for Greenland\u2019s security, officially citing concerns about Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic, and would prefer to do so under a NATO umbrella that includes the United States.<\/p>\n<p>He added that the deployment was \u201cnot about telling the Americans: come here, let\u2019s start a war, because we would not win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0\u201cThis is a reconnaissance mission,\u201d he said, stressing there is no permanent deployment or combat posture planned. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1789,365,32,2000,299,5187,7058,12336,366,23762,48802,2597,12337,54490,811,108791,49,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-702164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-denmark","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-defense","15":"tag-european-defense-policy","16":"tag-greenland","17":"tag-logistics","18":"tag-mette-frederiksen","19":"tag-military","20":"tag-missions","21":"tag-multinational-defense-programs","22":"tag-security","23":"tag-theo-francken","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115910659477696487","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}