Donald Trump has vowed to “100%” follow through on his threat to impose tariffs on European countries who oppose his demand to take control of Greenland.
European allies have rallied around Greenland’s sovereignty. Denmark’s foreign minister emphasised the US president cannot threaten his way to ownership of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper reiterated the UK’s position that the future of Greenland is for “Greenlanders and for the Danes alone” to decide.
In the current geopolitical environment, and particularly in the wake of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, we have seen frequent references to NATO’s Article 5: the “one for all and all for one” obligation of allies to assist one another in the face of attack.
Less attention is paid to the article of the North Atlantic Treaty that immediately precedes it. Article 4 stipulates that “The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.” Once Article 4 is invoked, it would prompt a meeting of the North Atlantic Council (NATO’s permanent ambassador-level body) to consider and respond to this threat. This provision for collective consultations has rarely been invoked, but last September, both Poland and Estonia on separate occasions triggered an Article 4 meeting in light of hostile Russian actions.
The author is a Pugwash Peacenik.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen says “Europe won’t be blackmailed”, as she and other European leaders continue to weigh their response to US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats over Greenland.
Trump says he will impose new taxes on eight US allies – Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK – in February if they oppose his proposed takeover of the autonomous Danish territory.
He insists Greenland is critical for US security and has not ruled out taking it by force – a move that has drawn widespread criticism.
ITALIAN IS SO EASY TO UNDERSTAND!!!🤌😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/ahHdCrCFpd
— il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) January 18, 2026
Greenland, with a population of fewer than 57,000, might not seem to be the territory on which the future of the relationship between Europe and the US, the viability of Nato as the world’s most successful defence alliance, or even the fractured relations between the UK and Europe would be determined.
But battlefields are sometimes the product of chance, rather than choice. It now feels as if Donald Trump’s threat to impose 10% tariffs on eight fellow Nato states for sending troops last week to support Greenland’s sovereignty may be one of those clarifying moments in which Europe had no option. Successive European leaders condemned Trump’s blackmail and intimidation on Sunday and they sounded as if they meant it.
STOP IT!!!🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/JsxjTOQBB3
— il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) January 17, 2026
Yesterday, Trump shocked Nato allies with a threat this weekend to impose tariffs on Denmark and a range of other Nato allies if they refuse to cede Greenland to the US. In response, the former Danish prime minister and Secretary-General of Nato, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told the Financial Times that: “Since childhood, I have considered the United States as the natural leader of the Free World. I’ve even spoken about the US as the world’s policeman… Now we see the United States use a language that’s pretty close to the gangsters that they should control in Moscow, Beijing etc.”
Trump's party in Greenland 😂
© vrhunskeprice (IG) pic.twitter.com/V7YXO0jcMF
— Sarahh (@Sarahhuniverse) January 18, 2026
Canada has drawn up plans to send a small contingent of soldiers to Greenland for military exercises with NATO allies in the face of threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to acquire the semi-autonomous Arctic territory, two senior government officials say.
The officials told The Globe and Mail that the Canadian Armed Forces are awaiting final political approval from Prime Minister Mark Carney before sending the soldiers.
🚨🚨BREAKING UPDATES 🚨
🇺🇸🇬🇱⚔️ “WAR CHIEF TRUMP” GOES VIRAL: AI VIKING MEME MOCKS GREENLAND POWER PLAY 😂❄️
Social media is laughing as an AI-generated video turns U.S. President Donald Trump into a horned Viking war chief, axe on the desk, flags flying behind him and… pic.twitter.com/eWpAVRMgUf
— Core (SatoshiPlus) #BTC, #ETH & #BNB Believers (@corechaincrypto) January 17, 2026
Germany already bugged-out – German soldiers leave Greenland
In a Fox News interview on Thursday, Denmark’s foreign minister [finally admitted that] Trump has a point on China and Russia’s threat to Greenland. Indeed, none other than the intelligence service of Denmark itself warned last year about Russian and Chinese military goals toward Greenland and Arctic.
Let’s be very clear: There is only one conclusion to be drawn from this: when Danish politicians, leaders, and media outlets mocked (or demonized) Trump administration leaders while pooh-poohing American worries about the threat from China and Russia as being “delusional”, they were lying. They were lying to the Americans, they were lying to the Danes (to their own people), and (perhaps insert “and/or” here) they were quite possibly lying to themselves.
When politics turns into a meme economy 😂
Greenland becomes the stage, dollars become the joke, and AI does the rest.
Welcome to the era where diplomacy trends as content.Trump/Greenland pic.twitter.com/cvCw3o0T0m
— Sweta Srivastava (@swetasamadhiya) January 15, 2026
h/t X — Formerly IB_Joe
Canada has drawn up plans to send a small contingent of soldiers to Greenland for military exercises with other NATO allies in the face of threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to acquire the semi-autonomous island controlled by Denmark, two senior government officials say.
The officials told The Globe and Mail that the Canadian Armed Forces is awaiting final political approval from Prime Minister Mark Carney before the soldiers are flown to Greenland.
Canada’s latest defence policy warns of Chinese and Russian ambitions in the Arctic and says China’s interests “increasingly diverge from our own on matters of defence and security.”
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday he found “much alignment” between his views on Greenland’s sovereignty and those of Chinese President Xi Jinping in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats against the territory.
“I had discussions with President Xi about the situation in Greenland, about our sovereignty in the Arctic, about the sovereignty of the people of Greenland and people of Denmark, and I found much alignment of views in that regard,” Carney said at a press conference in Beijing.
It’d be over so fast people would go to sleep Canadians and wake up Americans pic.twitter.com/u5OFnDboSP
— Creet.sol (@ConcreteXCrypto) January 17, 2026
The Monroe Doctrine doesn't just apply to Central and South America, it also includes Canada.
The Trump admin must expel Chinese influence from our hemisphere. https://t.co/cXJv8w7Ivz pic.twitter.com/vc9KdK5s11
— 🇺🇸 The American Culturist 🇺🇸 (@MericaCulture) January 16, 2026
Donald Trump has announced tariffs on the UK and other European countries for their opposition to a US takeover of Greenland.
The US president posted on Truth Social on Saturday that a 10 per cent tariff on all goods sent to the US would be imposed from Feb 1 on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland, before being increased to 25 per cent on June 1.
He accused the countries of creating a “very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet” after they sent a small contingent of troops to Greenland to help Denmark prepare military exercises.
My first encounter with the Sirius Patrol came after I’d delivered a speech at a conference in Nuuk, Greenland, in 2019.
A young man wearing Danish military camouflage approached me. He was tall and lean, with a weather-beaten face and piercing blue eyes.
“You’re right about the Arctic being a dangerous place,” he said. “Last winter, I travelled by dog sled along the coast of northeastern Greenland.”
If you control space, you control the Earth
Donald Trump’s desire for Greenland is not just about access to oil, minerals and control of the new strategic and commercial corridors opening in the region. It’s also about data. Specifically, the most important data in the world.
For decades, Pituffik Space Base – formerly Thule – in Greenland has been central to US space defense and Arctic strategy. It’s the US military’s only base above the Arctic Circle and their most northerly deep-water port and airstrip. It’s home to the 12th Space Warning Squadron. Its massive AN/FPS-132 radar has 240 degrees of coverage surveying the Arctic Ocean and Russia’s northern coast, especially the Kola peninsula where it has concentrated its strategic nuclear weapons.
The high north is on the approach route for Russia’s ballistic missiles as they head for the US mainland. When a Russian rocket blasts off, especially if unannounced, Pituffik reacts to data from the Air Force’s Space Based Infrared System, which detects the rocket’s heat signature from its engines during take-off.
Donald Trump is considering placing tariffs on countries that do not support his plan to annex Greenland.
The US president has been vocal about his aspiration to acquire the Danish territory, repeatedly saying that he would buy it, and failing to rule out military action to take the island by force.
“I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security,” Mr Trump said during a roundtable at the White House on Friday.
A bipartisan group of members of the US Congress has been visiting Denmark to show support in the face of increasing pressure from President Donald Trump for the US to annex Greenland – a semi-autonomous region of Denmark in the Arctic.
The 11-member delegation met MPs as well as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart Jens-Frederik Nielsen.
Group leader Senator Chris Coons said their trip was to listen to the locals and take their views back to Washington “to lower the temperature”.
