{"id":709716,"date":"2026-01-21T00:21:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T00:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/709716\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T00:21:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T00:21:18","slug":"how-europe-can-respond-to-trumps-greenland-imperalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/709716\/","title":{"rendered":"How Europe Can Respond to Trump\u2019s Greenland Imperalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

That is interesting, but it\u2019s not exactly ideological. It\u2019s that he sees European weakness and wants to exert power.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That is true. When Trump first came to power, there was some very interesting analysis from historians trying to gain an understanding of Trump\u2019s world view. Something that they figured out was that, throughout his career, President Trump has held a strong belief that there was something totally wrong that, after the end of World War Two, countries like Germany and Japan were able to do so well. In his understanding, it did not make sense that the United States, the United Kingdom, and even the Soviet Union won the war, but the Germans and the Japanese were doing so well. And then it transformed into \u201cAmerica won, so why are Europeans living better than us? Why do they have better cars?\u201d Etc.<\/p>\n

And I do believe that world view stayed with him. Moreover, he does not understand what the European Union is. Europeans believe in win-win scenarios. They do believe that you really can find a way to compromise. If there is a religion of European politics, it is about compromise and consensus. And then you have somebody like Trump, who\u2019s not interested in this.<\/p>\n

I was talking to an American analyst, a colleague of mine, and he made an observation, which I found profound, but will probably seem trivial to you. He said President Trump had a successful business career in many respects, but he was not spectacularly successful in one business that he tried, and this was the casino business. The problem is that in the casino business, in order to win, you should try to create the illusion that others are winning.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s pretty good. I don\u2019t find that trivial, actually.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was looking like a Crimean moment. So trust in the United States was very much based on the fact that, regardless of our differences, Europe can rely on the Americans when it comes to Russia, and now nobody believes it anymore.<\/p>\n

When you say a Crimean moment, I assume you\u2019re referring to Russia taking Crimea twelve years ago, and that that was only the beginning of their designs on Ukraine, and that Trump\u2019s desire to seize Greenland could similarly be a first step. Is that what you meant?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No. It is that in 2012 and 2013, prior to the invasion of Crimea, President Putin\u2019s popularity had declined a bit, and there had been some protests in Russia. And then suddenly you have basically this super-majority of support that emerges after he annexes Crimea. And, in my view, President Trump also thinks that if suddenly, overnight on July 4, 2026, Greenland becomes part of the United States, then America is going to understand how great they have become. And I do believe this is really scaring many in Europe because they imagine that this is going to be a politics that others want to imitate.<\/p>\n

I think Trump is totally wrong about how Americans would react to that, but it also just might not matter. And that in itself is scary enough. Are there off-ramps you see?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I believe there is going to be a group of countries, including those in Eastern Europe, saying, \u201cListen, let\u2019s talk seriously. We are going to recognize the strategic dimension of Greenland, but what we cannot talk about is America owning it.\u201d And here President Trump basically has an option. Either he\u2019s going to say, \u201cI achieved what I wanted to do. I never meant owning it. It was just about a deal, and now we are going to, for example, increase our military presence there, or it is going to be our companies that are going to develop some of the rare-earth resources of Greenland.\u201d Something like this can happen. But my feeling is that at this moment President Trump is not interested in this. It has become too symbolic for him.<\/p>\n

The other option for compromise is that Europeans are going to keep Greenland, and we are going to make Trump the chair of the Nobel Prize Committee so he can give the next Nobel Prize to himself. But, as of now, I do believe that Europeans probably are going to target some American goods. And we will see about the Anti-Coercion Instrument going forward.<\/p>\n

You mentioned earlier that Europeans thought Trump really did care about building a coalition against China. But now it seems possible that one of the long-term effects of America potentially breaking with Europe in a major way would be to provide an opening for China.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Totally. This is the story. And I also believe Europeans are still hanging on to the hope that some part of the American \u00e9lite\u2014the financial \u00e9lite but also the military \u00e9lite\u2014is going to go to President Trump and say, \u201cListen, you dislike Europe. And, of course, Europeans are idiots as you told us, but they\u2019re idiots that we need.\u201d If you look at global public opinion, people believe China is rising, but what is more interesting is that they have stopped fearing this. And I do believe this is something that President Trump slightly underestimated.<\/p>\n

And then there is the question of NATO. Many Europeans have started to ask themselves the question of whether their belief in NATO has started to resemble the French belief in the famous Maginot Line. Before World War Two, the French created this \u201cfortification\u201d on the German-French border, which created the feeling that they were defended, and then it turned out that it was not the case. So, suddenly, this destabilization of Europe can really have far-reaching consequences. This is why some Europeans still believe that at a certain point there is going to be a strategic realization on the side of the Trump Administration that this is not a war worth fighting.<\/p>\n

I hope you\u2019re right, but you said Trump may have \u201cunderestimated\u201d what effect all this would have with regard to China\u2019s potential influence going forward. I don\u2019t think this was underestimated or overestimated. I don\u2019t think it goes into the equation of what he\u2019s thinking about. The concept of a misguided national interest is one thing. Lots of Presidents have had those. The concept of a person who has no conception of the national interest is maybe closer to the mark.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, you\u2019re right. And do you know what the real risk for Europe is? The real risk for Europe is that Greenland will become Trump\u2019s obsession. Because one of the important things about President Trump is that he has strong views, but he cannot keep his attention for a very long time on the same issue. And, if this basically becomes an obsession, then the nature of the change to the transatlantic relationship is going to be really, really dramatic.\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That is interesting, but it\u2019s not exactly ideological. It\u2019s that he sees European weakness and wants to exert…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[32,2000,299,5187,1699,366,72915,479,19555],"class_list":{"0":"post-709716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-greenland","14":"tag-nato-north-atlantic-treaty-organization","15":"tag-tariffs","16":"tag-u-s-trade-policy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115930233829475621","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709716","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=709716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}