U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term started with controversial steps in the implementation of American foreign policy and continues to do so at great speed. Soon after he abducted the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, and the revealing of his plans for the future of Venezuela, he started an even bolder move in the practice of American foreign policy, which includes "buying Greenland," and if he cannot, then considering taking the island by force. Regarding the fact that Greenland, as an autonomous part of Denmark, is a member of NATO, what does Trump’s risk of invading the island mean for the practice of a rule-based international order, the future of NATO and the future of European security?
Three reasons are cited for Trump’s wish to annex Greenland and make it a property of the United States.
Trump thinks the Arctic region, where Greenland is based, is very important for American national security, especially considering the Chinese and Russian presence there. From his perspective, Greenland should belong to the U.S. if he wants to secure the Golden Dome project that he very much values. In his first week in office, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Defense to devise a plan to implement his missile defense proposal. Based on this, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world. Additionally, global warming is opening new shipping routes, as reduced sea ice makes Arctic passages more accessible, increasing Greenland’s strategic importance for global trade and logistics. This also adds to the American wish to control Greenland to get an upper hand in global competition against China and Russia.
Trump has an interest in regions that can provide critical raw materials for him that will advance the American position against China. We have seen him reveal these arguments in his dealings with Ukraine, Venezuela and Congo. The same argument also exists in his aims over Greenland. Greenland’s raw materials mainly come from its land, minerals and surrounding seas. It has rare earth elements used in electronics, wind turbines, and batteries like iron ore, zinc, lead, gold, copper, uranium, nickel and cobalt that are important for batteries and hydropower potential from glaciers and meltwater rivers. This makes Greenland an important country again in the competition against China, specifically.
However, especially for several military and economic experts, these are not enough to take over Greenland because there is not a very strong Chinese and Russian military presence in that region to make a substantial military investment against their threats. Russian military presence is concentrated mainly in the East Arctic region, which is not in the near vicinity of Greenland. Even more, American military and economic presence is already in Greenland as a NATO ally and they cooperate closely on defense, security, science and economic development, mostly through agreements with Denmark that apply directly to Greenland. So, when Americans already have a substantial influence over Greenland through several areas, where does the rhetoric of Trump to invade and own the island come from? That brings us to the third factor behind Trump’s position against Greenland.
Trump has an imperialistic idea of owning and controlling regions in the U.S.’ backyard that he thinks are vital to consolidate the U.S.’ leading position in the world. Based on his somewhat narcissistic character, he thinks this is a legitimate claim to make, coming from the president of the most powerful nation in the world. This argument also makes references to the famous Monroe Doctrine of 1823 by President James Monroe, where it was seen to be legitimate for the U.S. to control all the Western Hemisphere, especially against Europeans with their colonialist aims and policies.
“However, it is precisely for this reason that it has the potential to shatter the rules-based world order created after World War II, which emphasizes international law, liberalism, collective defense mechanisms, and respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of nation-states. This order was established through cooperation between the U.S. and Western Europe and has functioned relatively well until now. As the most dominant member of the world’s most important collective defense organization, NATO, the U.S.'s threat to invade another member of the same alliance poses a significant risk to the future of NATO and the liberal international order.
Unfortunately, the Europeans are caught between their dependence on American military aid in the war between Russia and Ukraine and their support for a European Union and NATO ally, Denmark. This aid is still extremely crucial for them since they see Russia as the biggest threat, and they are still far from building a strong military power to deter Russia from Europe. On the other hand, they have handed supportive statements to Denmark and Greenland leaders who have stated very clearly that Greenland is not for sale and that they do not wish to be part of the U.S.
In this very delicate position, there are not many options for Europeans to pursue: they can try to dissuade Trump from his claims and aims on the island, stressing the importance of the alliance for the future of the world, the need to stand together united on liberal Western values against the autocratic value system advocated by rivals like Russia and China, and stress the validity of the already existing American presence on the island. Meanwhile, they should try to continue with much rigor their attempts at creating an independent military power, liberated from all the bureaucratic and institutional restraints brought by EU membership, one that will make Europeans less dependent on the unreliable position of the U.S. under Trump’s presidency. And maybe they should make the EU’s Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), the mutual defense clause, much more visible and practical. This is the EU defense article, which says that if an EU country is attacked, other EU countries must help and assist it. It is not as strong as the famous Article 5 of NATO, but in a world where the U.S. is skeptical about using Article 5 to help the member states of NATO, this may be the time to strengthen the provisions of that article.
Attacking Greenland is very different from the U.S.’s takeovers of Venezuela, Iraq and Afghanistan, as it kills the NATO idea of "solidarity and collective defense" and has the potential to destroy NATO and with it all the values that the U.S. pioneered to build after World War II. Though he has vocalized several times his disdain for international organizations and his focus on American interests rather than common liberal values shared with other Western countries, Trump has his own restraints to implement all his personal aims; such as the Democrat Parties’ resistance against his aims, upcoming midterm elections, American economy not going as well as he has contemplated and the fact that not all MAGA supporters share his plans over Greenland. Still, he has the potential to shuffle world politics, put fellow Europeans on edge, and let them rethink the future of NATO, the EU, the reliability of the U.S. and the inevitable construction of a transactional, realist, interest-based world order with potential to replace the old one.
