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Tag: NATO

  • U.S. literally can’t afford to lose superpower status as debt looms—so we’re stuck in an ‘increasingly loveless’ marriage with Europe, analyst says | Fortune

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    Despite fears the trans-Atlantic alliance would break up over President Donald Trump’s desire to take over Greenland, the U.S. and Europe are too intertwined militarily and economically to split, according to Dan Alamariu, chief geopolitical strategist at Alpine Macro.

    Indeed, U.S. geopolitical dominance actually depends on European allies, he said in a note earlier this month, even as NATO members scramble to boost military spending to shore up capability gaps. Meanwhile, Europe can’t pivot to China or Russia.

    “The plausible and likely path is messy coexistence: periodic trade clashes, louder rhetoric, and gradual European autonomy at the margins, alongside continued alignment on Russia, nuclear deterrence, intelligence, and China policy,” Alamariu wrote.

    The strained ties were on display over the weekend during the Munich Security Conference. Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed to remain involved in Europe and pointed to shared sacrifices on the battlefield, but reaffirmed the Trump administration’s goal to reshape the alliance.  

    Rubio also pulled out of a high-level meeting on Ukraine at the last minute, prompting one European official to call the move “insane” amid efforts to end Russia’s war there.

    But for now, Europe can’t break free of its dependence on the U.S. military, especially for high-end deterrence and warfighting enablers, Alamariu said. While the European Union is boosting defense spending, it’s not enough to achieve strategic autonomy anytime soon.

    “Even if politics sours, Euro-Atlantic defense runs through U.S.-centered institutions,” he added. “Bottom line: Without a common EU military and budget, the EU won’t become autonomous from the U.S., much less split off.”

    On the economic side, the two partners have extremely complex ties that cover supply chains, services, foreign direct investment and financial flows, representing the world’s deepest bilateral relationship, Alamariu explained.

    This dependence goes both ways and extends to military power. If NATO were to break up, the value of having the U.S. as an ally would be greatly diminished in Japan and South Korea, he said.

    “Without NATO and its major allies, the U.S. would struggle to maintain its globally dominant role,” Alamariu warned. “This would have dire implications for the USD’s global role and its weak fiscal outlook. The U.S. literally cannot afford not to be a superpower, lest its bills come due.”

    In fact, the U.S. fiscal picture has deteriorated sharply in recent years. And despite soaring deficits, Trump has vowed to increase defense spending by 50% to $1.5 trillion.

    Helping finance U.S. budget shortfalls is Europe, which remains a top buyer of Treasury debt. Alamariu said there’s no broad evidence of European liquidation of U.S. assets and predicted it’s unlikely. At the same time, the American economy continues to outperform, making it attractive to investors, while Europe lacks a viable alternative to Treasuries.

    EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas also highlighted U.S.-Europe codependence at the Munich Security Conference.

    “When, for example, Russia goes to war, they go alone because they don’t have allies,” she said. “When America goes to wars, a lot of us go with you, and we lose our people along the way. So that means that you also need us to be this superpower. Because if you look at the bigger picture in terms of economic might, China is a very, very powerful country.”

    To be sure, China is an economic threat to Europe, as a flood of cheap imports puts the continent’s industrial base at risk, Alamariu pointed out.

    China also is a critical enabler of Russia’s war on Ukraine, and has reportedly deepened its cooperation with Moscow, particularly for dual-use components and critical minerals used in Russian drone production.

    As long as Russia remains a threat, Europe has an incentivize to manage its tensions with the U.S. rather than seek a full-blown rupture, Alamariu said, adding that it will still accelerate “selective autonomy” in areas like defense investment and economic security.

    “Yet, collaboration with the U.S. will likely persist despite sky-high headline risks and mutual fear and loathing,” he said. “Our argument: the two are stuck with each other, in an increasingly loveless, if still convenient, marriage.”

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  • As Trump slams America’s NATO allies, they practice chasing Russian nuclear armed subs in the Arctic

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    Bergen, Norway — In the frigid waters off the coast of Norway, America’s NATO allies scour the depths for clandestine Russian activity.

    The stretch of ocean, viewed as a gateway to the Arctic, is where Europe’s high north meets the Russian high north, home to the Kremlin’s Northern Fleet. 

    Nuclear-armed Russian submarines are dispatched regularly from the vast naval base on the country’s freezing Kola peninsula, slipping silently beneath the waves before heading into the North Atlantic.  

    CBS News joined the crew of a NATO warship taking part in drills aimed at detecting, tracking and — if necessary — taking out these subs before they pass through the narrow gap between Greenland, Iceland and the U.K., and onward to the United States’ eastern seaboard.  

    If a war were to break out between Russia and the U.S. and its NATO allies, the area would become a strategic chokepoint.

    Commanders see Operation Arctic Dolphin — an exercise involving ships, submarines and aircraft from Spain, Germany, France, the U.K. and many other nations — as essential to maintaining cohesion in a military alliance that has endured for 75 years.

    “Norway has the great advantage of being a part of such a huge alliance,” said Commodore Kyrre Haugen, commander of the Norwegian Fleet overseeing Arctic Dolphin. “But every nation is taking advantage of being a part of something that is bigger than themselves.”

    The commander said Norway has operated in the Arctic since the Cold War, and the “special focus” on the region now highlights how crucial it is to the security of both Europe and the U.S.

    Arctic map shows Greenland and the Northern Hemisphere with locations of NATO and Russian military bases. 

    AFP via Getty Images


    “Those missiles can attack Europe, can attack America by being deployed in the deep seas, all into the Atlantic,” he said, referring to Russia’s arsenal.

    The NATO drill is just one aspect of a race to secure a region that has become a “front line for strategic competition,” according to U.S. Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. 

    Russia’s already using the Arctic as a testing ground for its hypersonic missiles, designed to evade U.S. air defenses. 

    But threats to regional stability have also emerged closer to home.   

    President Trump angered NATO partners by repeatedly insisting the U.S. needed to take ownership of Greenland — and by threatening last month to impose tariffs on allies if they didn’t comply. 

    He backed off that threat, announcing a still-vaguely defined “ultimate long-term deal” with America’s NATO allies on Greenland, but he also routinely lambasts those allies, accusing them of not spending enough on their own defense. 

    Undeniably, the alliance is playing catch-up in the Arctic and the high north. Seven of the eight Arctic states are NATO Allies. Yet Russia, with more than half the Arctic coastline in its territory, has almost as many permanently-manned bases in the region as all NATO members combined.

    On the bridge of the Spanish frigate ESPS Almirante Juan de Borbon, the commander defended to CBS News the contribution to NATO by Spain, which Mr. Trump recently accused of not being “loyal” to the alliance.

    “I’m not going to dig into political dynamics,” said Rear Admiral Joaquín Ruiz Escagedo, before gesturing to the young naval officers busy in front of maps and radar screens. “But I would say the contribution of Spain, you can see here.”

    Escagedo said the country has “a lot of capabilities,” and is committed to NATO’s collective defense principle.

    “We cannot be isolated. The power of NATO is the unity,” he said. “That’s the success of NATO for decades.”

    That unity is about to be tested with a new mission. 

    NATO planning new Arctic Sentry mission for “enhanced vigilance” in the far north

    A spokesperson for Gen. Grynkewich, NATO’s American commander in Europe, confirmed to CBS News that planning is underway for a mission in the Arctic region.  

    Arctic Sentry will be an “enhanced vigilance activity to even further strengthen NATO’s posture in the Arctic and High North.”

    The spokesperson told CBS News that planning for the new mission has “only just begun, but details will follow in due course.”

    The possibility of an Arctic Sentry mission was first mentioned by Britain’s top diplomat last month, as an element of the negotiations that resolved Mr. Trump’s standoff with Europe over the fate of Greenland. 

    Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the U.K. had proposed working “through NATO on a new Arctic sentry, which is similar to what we already have through NATO — a Baltic Sentry and an Eastern Sentry,” referring to existing regional security partnerships among NATO allies.

    “This is now going to be a focus of work through NATO, with different Arctic countries coming together and supported by other NATO countries on how we do that shared security,” she told CBS News’ partner network BBC News on Jan. 22.

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  • News Analysis: NATO has survived plenty over 75 years. Could Trump’s Greenland threats end that?

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    WASHINGTON — The crisis touched off by President Trump’s demand to take ownership of Greenland appears over, at least for now. But the United States and its European allies still face a larger long-term challenge: Can their shaky marriage be saved?

    At 75 years old, NATO has survived storms before, from squabbles over trade to estrangement over wars in Vietnam and Iraq. France, jealous of its independence, even pulled its armed forces out of NATO for 43 years.

    But diplomats and foreign policy scholars warn that the current division in the alliance may be worse, because Trump’s threats on Greenland convinced many Europeans that the United States has become an unreliable and perhaps even dangerous ally.

    The roots of the crisis lie in the president’s frequently expressed disdain for alliances in general and NATO in particular.

    Long before Trump arrived in the White House, presidents from both parties complained that many NATO countries weren’t pulling their weight in military spending.

    But earlier presidents still considered the alliance an essential asset to U.S. foreign policy and the cornerstone of a system that prevented war in Europe for most of a century.

    Trump has never seemed to share that view. Even after he succeeded in persuading NATO members to increase their defense spending, he continued to deride most allies as freeloaders.

    Until last year, he refused to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to help defend other NATO countries, the core principle of the alliance. And he reserved the right to walk away from any agreement, military or commercial, whenever it suited his purpose.

    In the two-week standoff over Greenland, he threatened to seize the island from NATO member Denmark by force, an action that would have violated the NATO treaty.

    When Britain, Germany and other countries sent troops to Greenland, he threatened to hit them with new tariffs, which would have violated a trade deal Trump made only last year.

    Both threats touched off fury in Europe, where governments had spent most of the past year making concessions to Trump on both military spending and tariffs. When Trump backed down, the lesson some leaders drew was that pushing back worked better than playing nice.

    “We do prefer respect to bullies,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.

    “Being a happy vassal is one thing. Being a miserable slave is something else,” Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said.

    The long-term danger for the United States, scholars said, is that Europeans might choose to look elsewhere for military and economic partners.

    “They just don’t trust us,” said Richard N. Haass, a former top State Department official in the George W. Bush administration.

    “A post-American world is fast emerging, one brought about in large part by the United States taking the lead in dismantling the international order that this country built,” he wrote last week.

    Some European leaders, including Macron, have argued that they need to disentangle from the United States, build military forces that can defend against Russia, and seek more reliable trade partners, potentially including India and China.

    But decoupling from the United States would not be easy, fast or cheap. Europe and Canada still depend on the United States for many of their defense needs and as a major market for exports.

    Almost all NATO countries have pledged to increase defense spending to 5% of gross domestic product, but they aren’t scheduled to reach that goal until 2035.

    Meanwhile, they face the current danger of an expansionist Russia on their eastern frontier.

    Not surprisingly for a group of 30 countries, Europe’s NATO members aren’t united on the question. Macron has argued for more autonomy, but others have called for caution.

    “Despite all the frustration and anger of recent months, let us not be too quick to write off the transatlantic partnership,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said at Davos.

    “I think we are actually in the process of creating a stronger NATO,” said Finnish President Alexander Stubb. “As long as we keep doing that, slowly and surely we’ll be just fine.”

    They argue, in effect, that the best strategy is to muddle through — which is what NATO and Europe have done in most earlier crises.

    The strongest argument for that course may be the uncertainty and disorder that would follow a rapid erosion — or worse, dissolution — of an alliance that has helped keep its members safe for most of a century.

    The costs of that outcome, historian Robert Kagan warned recently, would be borne by Americans as well as Europeans.

    If the United States continues to weaken its commitments to NATO and other alliances, he wrote in the Atlantic, “The U.S. will have no reliable friends or allies, and will have to depend entirely on its own strength to survive and prosper. This will require more military spending, not less. … If Americans thought defending the liberal world order was too expensive, wait until they start paying for what comes next.”

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    Doyle McManus

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  • Trump’s leaves NATO allies “dumbfounded” and “disgusted” with remarks dismissing sacrifices in Afghanistan

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    London — European military veterans, families of the fallen, and politicians have voiced outrage after President Trump claimed the U.S. had “never needed” its NATO allies, and that allied troops had stayed “a little off the front lines” during the 20-year war in Afghanistan.

    “The only time NATO has ever enacted Article 5 was after the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the United States, and the world rallied to the support of the U.S.,” Alistair Carns, the U.K. government’s Minister of the Armed Forces and a veteran who served five tours in Afghanistan alongside American troops, said in a video posted Friday on social media. “We shed blood, sweat and tears together, and not everybody came home. These are bonds, I think, forged in fire, protecting U.S. or shared interests, but actually protecting democracy overall.”

    More than 2,200 American troops were killed in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon. The Reuters news agency says 457 British military personnel, 150 Canadians and 90 French troops died alongside them. Denmark lost 44 troops in Afghanistan — in per capita terms, about the same death rate as that of the United States.

    People react as hearses carrying the bodies of eight British soldiers killed in Afghanistan pass mourners lining the street in Wootton Bassett, England, July 14, 2009. Two of the troops were just 18-years-old when they were killed in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where British and U.S. forces were involved in a major operation to recapture territory from Taliban militants.

    Matt Cardy/Getty


    “There are two great sayings worth remembering,” Carns said in his video responding to Mr. Trump’s remarks. “Number one: ‘There’s only one worse thing than working with allies. That is working without them.’ And when you do, always remember: ‘Never above, never below, always side-by-side.”

    A spokesperson for U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Friday that Mr. Trump, “was wrong to diminish the role of NATO troops” in Afghanistan.

    Later Friday, Starmer called the remarks “insulting and frankly appalling.”

    “We expect an apology for this statement,” Roman Polko, a retired Polish general and former special forces commander who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told the Reuters news agency.

    Mr. Trump has “crossed a red line,” he said. “We paid with blood for this alliance. We truly sacrificed our own lives.”

    Lucy Aldridge, the mother of the youngest British soldier killed in Afghanistan, told the BBC she was “deeply disgusted” by Mr. Trump’s comments. Her son William Aldridge was only 18 years old when he was killed in a 2009 bomb blast, while trying to save fellow troops.

    Armistice Day

    The Bredenbury War Memorial, in Herefordshire, England, is seen after the name of Rifleman William Aldridge, who was killed at the age of 18, fighting in Afghanistan in 2009, was added.

    David Jones/PA Images/Getty


    “Families of those who were lost to that conflict live the trauma every day. I’m not just deeply offended, I’m actually deeply disgusted,” Aldridge said. “This isn’t just misspeaking, he has deeply offended, I can imagine, every NATO member who sent troops to fight in Afghanistan and certainly the families of those who never came home.”

    The former head of the British Army, Lord Richard Dannatt, called Mr. Trump’s comments, “outrageous.”

    “Well frankly, one was dumbfounded, because they’re [Mr. Trump’s comments] so factually incorrect. Absolutely disrespectful to our nation, to our armed forces and to the families of the 457 British service men and women who lost their lives in Afghanistan,” Dannatt told the BBC.

    “The comments that he made … are just totally disrespectful, wrong and outrageous. It does make you wonder whether he is actually fit for the job that he apparently is doing,” Dannatt added. 

    “We Europeans must do more, and if there’s anything positive that Donald Trump has done in his assorted ramblings over the last year, it’s actually to make that point,” the former U.K. army chief said. “European governments must really listen up, stand up now and find the cash that’s needed to increase our military capability, not because we want to fight a war, but we need to deter further aggression.”

    CBS News asked the White House on Friday about Mr. Trump’s remarks on the role America’s NATO allies played in the war in Afghanistan, and the criticism directed at him.

    Deputy press secretary Anna Kelly replied with the following statement: “President Trump is right — America’s contributions to NATO dwarf that of other countries, and his success in delivering a five percent spending pledge from NATO allies is helping Europe take greater responsibility for its own defense. The United States is the only NATO partner who can protect Greenland, and the President is advancing NATO interests in doing so.”

    Kathryn Watson

    contributed to this report.

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  • Trump says US should have tested NATO by invoking Article 5 over border security

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    President Donald Trump on Thursday said the United States should have considered testing NATO by forcing member countries to respond to America’s southern border crisis.

    Trump speculated in a post on Truth Social that the U.S. could have invoked Article 5 — the alliance’s collective defense clause that deems an attack on one member as an attack on all — thereby putting NATO “to the test.”

    “Maybe we should have put NATO to the test: Invoked Article 5, and forced NATO to come here and protect our Southern Border from further Invasions of Illegal Immigrants, thus freeing up large numbers of Border Patrol Agents for other tasks,” he wrote.

    The president’s comments came after he has recently questioned NATO’s commitment to aiding the U.S.

    DENMARK RAMPS UP DEFENSES IN GREENLAND AS TRUMP ZEROS IN ON CONTROL OF TERRITORY

    US President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte attend the start of a NATO leaders summit in The Hague, Netherlands June 25, 2025.  (Ludovic Marin/Pool via Reuters)

    “We will always be there for NATO, even if they won’t be there for us,” the president wrote on social media earlier this month.

    After meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump announced that he had the “framework of a future deal regarding Greenland.”

    Trump wrote on Truth Social that if finalized, the deal “will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations.”

    DAVOS BRACES FOR TRUMP AMID TENSIONS OVER NATO, GREENLAND AND GLOBAL DEFENSE

    President Donald Trump speaking with NATO Secretary General Mark Rhutte

    President Donald Trump suggested the U.S. should have tested NATO’s commitment by invoking Article 5 in response to the southern border crisis. (Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP)

    Following the meeting, Trump said he would scrap a plan to impose tariffs on a group of NATO members who sent troops to Greenland amid the president’s efforts to acquire the island. Trump had asserted that those countries would be subjected to a 10% tariff on all goods beginning Feb. 1.

    In an exclusive interview with Fox News this week, Rutte said Trump was “totally right” about needing to shore up security in the Arctic region, noting that the chance of Russia or China becoming a threat in that region was increasing.

    Rutte applauded Trump’s leadership in getting NATO countries to pay more money for the alliance’s defenses.

    NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte attends the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2026.

    NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte praised President Trump’s leadership on defense spending. (Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

    “I would argue tonight with you on this program he was the one who brought a whole of Europe and Canada up to this famous 5%,” Rutte said, “which is crucial for us to equalize our spending, but also protect ourselves. And this is the framework which you see in his post that we will work on.”

    NATO members were previously spending 2% of GDP on defense, but have now agreed to spend 5% of GDP on defense and national security infrastructure.

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    Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

    Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.

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  • Top NATO official reveals details of stunning meeting with Trump that produced Greenland deal ‘framework’

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    After President Donald Trump announced a new Greenland “framework” had been agreed upon with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the NATO chief told Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” the U.S. forcibly taking control of Greenland from Denmark was not discussed during meetings between him and Trump in Switzerland during the World Economic Forum.

    “That issue did not come up anymore in my conversations with Mr. President. He’s very much focused on what we need to do to make sure that that huge Arctic region, where change is taking place at the moment, where the Chinese and Russians are more and more active, how we can protect that,” Rutte said when pressed on the details of the reported “framework” that has been agreed upon. 

    Trump said the agreement resulted in his decision not to impose tariffs scheduled to go into effect Feb. 1. 

    “That was really the focus of our discussions,” Rutte insisted.

    TRUMP’S ‘SMALL ASK’ FOR GREENLAND WOULD BE THE REAL ESTATE DEAL OF A LIFETIME

    NATO chief Mark Rutte says Europe never would have stepped up its defense spending without Trump.  (Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

    Trump announced the new “framework” for Greenland in a post on his social media site Truth Social Wednesday afternoon while at the World Economic Forum this week. 

    “Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region,” the president wrote. “Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st. Additional discussions are being held concerning The Golden Dome as it pertains to Greenland. Further information will be made available as discussions progress.”

    Trump noted that Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff will lead “the negotiations” and report directly to him.

    TRUMP TELLS DAVOS US ALONE CAN SECURE GREENLAND, INSISTS HE WON’T ‘USE FORCE’

    A split of Trump and Greenlandic protesters.

    People wave Greenlandic flags during a mass demonstration opposing President Donald Trump’s proposal to acquire Greenland in Nuuk, Greenland, Jan. 17, 2026. (Getty Images)

    “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won’t do that,” Trump said earlier in the morning at the World Economic Forum. “Now everyone’s saying, ‘Oh, good.’ That’s probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”

    During the exclusive interview with Fox News, Rutte called Trump “totally right” about needing to shore up security in the Arctic region, noting that the chance of Russia or China becoming a threat in that region is increasing every day. The NATO Secretary General also praised Trump’s leadership in getting other NATO countries to pay more money for the alliance’s defenses.

    “I would argue tonight with you on this program he was the one who brought a whole of Europe and Canada up to this famous 5%,” Rutte insisted, “which is crucial for us to equalize our spending, but also protect ourselves. And this is the framework which you see in his post that we will work on.”

    Rutte also noted that increased volatility between NATO-aligned countries, Russia and China underscored the need to shore up security in the Arctic region.

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    The NATO chief was asked whether he thought other countries were dealing with the Russians and the Chinese differently than they have in the past.

    Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping  (AP)

    “It’s not up to me to comment on what individual allies are doing in terms of their relationship with China,” Rutte responded. “I think collectively, as NATO, we have a position. The position is that we should not be naive. I can tell you’ll regret these huge investments the Chinese are making in the military. They are not there to organize parades in Beijing, and the military in Russia are not there to organize parades in Moscow. They are there to be used.”

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  • Trump backs away from military force, says U.S. has ‘framework’ for Greenland’s future

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    NUUK, Greenland — President Trump retreated Wednesday from his most serious threats toward Denmark, easing transatlantic tensions and lifting Wall Street after rejecting the prospect he would use military force to annex Greenland, a Danish territory and the world’s largest island.

    Instead, the United States struck a “framework” agreement in talks with NATO’s secretary general regarding the future of Greenland, “and in fact, the whole Arctic region,” Trump wrote on social media. He did not immediately provide details on the contents of the plan.

    The whiplash of developments followed weeks of escalating threats from the president to control Greenland by any means necessary — including by force, if left with no other choice.

    Now, “the military’s not on the table,” Trump told reporters at the economic forum in Switzerland, acknowledging sighs of relief throughout the room.

    “I don’t think it will be necessary,” he said. “I really don’t. I think people are going to use better judgment.”

    It was a turn of events that came as welcome news in Nuuk, where signs hang in storefronts and kitchen windows rejecting American imperialism.

    “It’s difficult to say what are negotiating tactics, and what the foundation is for him saying all of this,” said Finn Meinel, an attorney born and raised in the Greenlandic capital. “It could be that joint pressure from the EU and NATO countries has made an impact, as well as the economic numbers in the states. Maybe that has had an influence.”

    President Trump speaks during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday.

    (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

    In his speech at Davos, Trump took note of the market turmoil his threats against Greenland had caused entering the conference. Announcing the agreement framework on social media Wednesday, he said he would pause punitive tariffs planned against longstanding European allies that had refused to support his demands.

    Prominent world leaders — including from Canada, France and the United Kingdom, among Washington’s closest allies — had warned earlier this week that Trump’s militant threats against a fellow NATO member were ushering in a new era of global order accommodating a less reliable United States.

    For years, Trump has called for U.S. ownership over Greenland due to its strategic position in the Arctic Circle, where ice melting due to climate change is making way for a new era of competition with Russia and China. An Arctic conflict, the president says, will require a robust U.S. presence there.

    While the president rejects climate change and its perils as a hoax, he has embraced the opportunities that may come with the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet, the world’s largest after Antarctica, including the opening of new shipping lanes and defense positions.

    The United States already enjoys broad freedom to deploy any defense assets it sees fit across the island, raising questions in Europe over Trump’s fixation on outright sovereignty over the land.

    “We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it. We’ve never asked for anything else,” Trump said, addressing members of the NATO alliance.

    “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force,” Trump said. But Europe still has a choice. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative,” he continued, “or you can say no, and we will remember.”

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    The day before Trump’s speech, allies warned about a “rupture” in a global order in which the United States could be relied upon as a force of good. Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, in a speech Tuesday characterized Trump’s push to acquire Greenland as an example of why “the old order is not coming back.”

    Trump apparently took note of Carney’s remarks, and told the crowd on Wednesday that Canada “should be grateful.”

    “But they are not,” Trump said. “Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”

    The president struck a similar tone with his demands for Greenland, repeatedly characterizing the United States as a “great power” compared with Denmark in its ability to protect the Arctic territory. At one point, he cited the American military’s role in World War II to justify his demands, telling the eastern Swiss audience that, “without us, you’d all be speaking German, or a little Japanese perhaps.”

    It was a slight carried forward by the president’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, who derided Copenhagen for its decision to divest from U.S. treasuries. “Denmark’s investment in U.S. treasury bonds like Denmark itself is irrelevant,” the secretary said.

    In several instances, Trump framed the transatlantic alliance as one that benefits other countries more than the United States.

    “We will be with NATO 100%, but I’m not sure they will be there for us,” Trump said. But NATO Secretary Gen. Mark Rutte responded to the concern in their meeting, noting that the alliance’s Article 5 commitment to joint defense has only been invoked once — by the United States, after the September 11th attacks. “Let me tell you: they will,” Rutte said.

    But Trump expanded on his thinking over Greenland in his speech to the summit, describing his fixation on Greenland as “psychological,” and questioning why the United States would come to the island’s defense if its only investment was a licensing agreement.

    “There’s no sign of Denmark there. And I say that with great respect for Denmark, whose people I love, whose leaders are very good,” Trump said. “It’s the United States alone that can protect this giant, massive land – this giant piece of ice – develop it, and improve it, and make it so that it’s good for Europe, and safe for Europe, and good for us.”

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom was among the people in the audience reacting to Trump’s remarks in real time. The president’s speech, he told CNN afterward, was “remarkably boring” and “remarkably insignificant.”

    “He was never going invade Greenland. It was never real,” Newsom said. “That was always a fake.”

    Wilner reported from Nuuk, Ceballos from Washington, D.C.

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  • Trump to address Davos World Economic Forum as America’s allies push back against his bid to take Greenland

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    “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in his speech at Davos on Monday. “Great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.”

    “You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination,” Carney said, making a case for “middle powers” like Canada to work together to gain leverage against “great powers,” which he said have the luxury of going it alone.

    “When we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what’s offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating,” Carney said. “This is not sovereignty. It’s the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice — compete with each other for favor, or to combine to create a third path with impact.”

    Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivers a speech at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 20, 2026.

    Harun Ozalp/Anadolu/Getty


    He called other nations to join Canada to pursue shared values, supporting Ukraine, NATO, and Danish and Greenlandic sovereignty, and warned them to “stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is — a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion.”

    “The powerful have their power,” Carney said. “But we have something too — the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together. That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.”

    His remarks drew a standing ovation.

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  • Fact-checking Trump’s message to Norway’s prime minister

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    In a fight over President Donald Trump’s quest to acquire Greenland, the president made false and misleading statements about the Nobel Peace Prize and his own peace record.

    “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote Jan. 18 in a text message to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.  

    Trump added, “I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”

    Trump made similar comments in a Jan. 20 press conference on the anniversary of his inauguration. He again inferred that the country of Norway awards the Nobel Peace Prize. “Don’t let anyone tell you that Norway doesn’t control the shots, OK? It’s in Norway!”

    Trump sent the text messages to Støre the same weekend he moved to add 10% tariffs on eight European countries, including Norway, that have opposed his quest to acquire Greenland.

    Here, we fact-checked Trump’s remarks.

    Trump: The country of Norway “decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize.”

    This is inaccurate.

    Støre issued a statement in response, “I have clearly explained, including to president Trump what is well known, the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee and not the Norwegian Government.”

    Trump has long said he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who recently won the prize for her fight for democracy, gave her prize medal to Trump. But the Norwegian Nobel Committee said the award can’t be revoked, shared or transferred. 

    Stein Tønnesson, Norwegian historian and former director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo who has worked for the Nobel committee as a consultant, said, “There is absolutely no truth in the claim that the government controls the prize. Trump is wrong, wrong and wrong.” 

    We asked the White House for Trump’s evidence that Norway awards the prize. Spokesperson Anna Kelly provided a statement that did not answer that question.

    The Norwegian Nobel Committee includes five members appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. Committee members must be former politicians or civilians, not active members of parliament. 

    Erik Aasheim, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Nobel Institute, which supports the Nobel Committee, told PolitiFact the committee is an independent body that operates with no government influence over its decisions.

    Peter Wallensteen, a University of Notre Dame international peace researcher, told PolitiFact that committee members span the political spectrum and the committee’s funding comes from the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation. 

    “It has happened a number of times that the committee has given the prize to recipients that pursue different policies than the Norwegian government,” Wallensteen said.

    For example, In 2017, the committee awarded the prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. That organization promotes the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which Norway has not signed.

    Trump: I “stopped 8 Wars.” 

    This is exaggerated. 

    We wrote in October that Trump had a hand in ceasefires that have recently eased conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. But these were mostly incremental accords, and some leaders dispute the extent of Trump’s role. 

    Trump made notable progress by securing the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage agreement, but the deal involves multiple stages, so it will take time to see if peace holds.

    The other conflicts Trump referenced are between Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Cambodia and Thailand, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Kosovo and Serbia. 

    Trump: “I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding.”

    Trump went even further in a Jan. 20 Truth Social post, writing, “If I didn’t come along, there would be no NATO right now!!!” 

    Trump has influenced NATO, but whether he has done more for the alliance than anyone else in decades is debatable. NATO, formally the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was created in 1949 to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. The alliance has 32 members, including the United States.

    Experts said Trump gets some credit for allies agreeing to increase their NATO spending, but pointed to other influences on NATO as well. 

    Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said Trump “frightened the Europeans” into promising additional spending on NATO by 2035.

    A White House official pointed us to the European pledge and said the U.S. spends $1 billion on the alliance, more than other countries.

    Since NATO’s founding, the alliance has faced several challenges, said Barry R. Posen, a MIT professor of political science and expert on international relations.

    “I do agree, however, that President Trump deserves credit for starting a long delayed and necessary rebalancing of responsibilities in the alliance,” Posen said.

    Logan said Russia president Vladimir Putin’s 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine shook Europeans and spurred defense spending increases.

    Jytte Klausen, a Brandeis University professor of international cooperation, echoed Logan, saying Trump pushed through the European deal in 2025 and deserves credit. But Russia’s war against Ukraine and concerns it would move on to attack other countries motivated the increased spending.

    “On the other side of the ledger, Trump’s threat to annex Greenland has made the breakup of NATO a near-possibility,” Klausen said.

    RELATED: Trump administration sets its sights on Greenland after Venezuela. How does Denmark factor in?

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  • Trump Leaks World Leaders’ Private Texts in Greenland Bullying Fit

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    Photo: Michael Kappeler/Picture Alliance/Getty Images

    While it’s cliché to call Donald Trump’s behavior childish, there’s really no other way to characterize his demand to take Greenland. Polls show that Greenlanders don’t want to be part of the U.S., and Americans’ support for forcibly taking the Arctic island is in the single digits. While Greenland is important for strategic and defense reasons, experts say Trump could get pretty much everything he wants there if he just asks nicely. But Trump keeps insisting he has to have Greenland, and he has to have it now.

    Now the president is using increasingly immature tactics in his quest to obtain the Arctic island, pouting about how he was robbed of a Nobel Peace Prize and publicly sharing world leaders’ private text messages about Greenland on Truth Social.

    Trump kicked off the long MLK Day weekend by inviting countries to join a new “Board of Peace,” which he will chair. It appears he’s envisioning an American-dominated alternative United Nations with a $1 billion admission fee. Then, in a lengthy Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump announced he will impose tariffs on several nations if they don’t let the U.S. purchase Greenland:

    Starting on February 1st, 2026, all of the above mentioned Countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Finland), will be charged a 10% Tariff on any and all goods sent to the United States of America. On June 1st, 2026, the Tariff will be increased to 25%. This Tariff will be due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.

    A day later, Trump’s text-based behind-the-scenes tantrum-ing spilled into public. In a Sunday message to Jonas Gahr Støre, the prime minister of Norway, Trump said he’s demanding Greenland because he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize.

    “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote. He went on to question Denmark’s claim to Greenland.

    Støre said in a statement that he has repeatedly explained to Trump that — as everyone else is well aware — Norway has nothing to do with who gets the Nobel as “it is an independent Nobel Committee, and not the Norwegian government, that awards the prize.”

    Nevertheless, it seems Team Trump thought this error-ridden text was smart messaging. The Atlantic noted, “The text was forwarded by the White House National Security Council to ambassadors in Washington, and was clearly intended to be widely shared.”

    So it does not seem that Trump’s next unhinged move was an act of retaliation for his message being shared publicly. While traveling to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum early on Tuesday morning, Trump posted what France later confirmed was a private text from French president Emmanuel Macron:

    A day earlier, Trump had publicly threatened France with a 200 percent tariff on wines and Champagnes following reports that Macron would refuse to join the Board of Peace. It seems Macron was attempting to smooth things over by reminding his “friend” Trump of their agreement on other foreign-policy issues and offering to set up a Thursday G7 meeting in Paris, along with a private dinner, to hash out the Greenland issue.

    Attempting to humiliate foes by sharing their private messages is a common Trump tactic (it was actually the premise for one of his coffee-table books). But this is the first time he has posted private messages from a foreign leader, aside from a fawning text NATO chief Mark Rutte sent him last summer.

    Trump continued his Truth Social taunting by posting altered images that showed him taking over Greenland (along with Venezuela and Canada):

    Next, Trump lashed out at the U.K. for giving away the island of Diego Garcia, arguing that it’s yet another reason why the U.S. must take Greenland:

    Then Trump shared a private message in which Rutte praised him and promised to hype his foreign-policy achievements in Davos:

    Trump told the New York Post that he shared the messages because they show European leaders are behaving differently toward him behind the scenes as they publicly issue warnings about Greenland.

    “It just made my point. They’re saying, ‘Oh gee, let’s have dinner, let’s do this, let’s do that.’ It just made my point,” he said.

    Both Macron and the White House confirmed on Tuesday that the proposed G7 meeting in Paris isn’t happening, as AFP reports:

    ‘No meeting is scheduled. The French presidency is willing to hold one,’ Macron told AFP in brief remarks after he delivered a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

    … A White House official told AFP that Trump has ‘no plans to travel to Paris at this time’. The US president is set to arrive in Davos on Wednesday and leave on Thursday.

    So what’s next for Greenland? For now, it seems we’re all being held hostage, at the whim of a leader who’d rather bully allies via threats and nasty online posts than sit down to find a reasonable way to get what he wants.

    This post was updated to include Trump’s remarks to the Post.


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  • Trump takes on angry European leaders over Greenland with memes and published text messages

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    President Trump will face shocked European leaders in Davos, Switzerland, as he remains defiant in his stance on Greenland. CBS News’ Holly Williams reports.

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    Lake effect snow sweeps Eastern U.S.; Trump ties Greenland threat to perceived Nobel Peace Prize snub.

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  • Donald Trump Lobs Grenade at Europe on The Eve of Davos

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    On the eve of Davos, the annual gathering of world leaders and Loro-clad business titans where the future of the free world is plotted out, President Donald Trump lobbed a grenade: an angry text, sent to Norway’s prime minister, that ratcheted up tensions between the United States and Europe, while revealing the calculus that’s driving his hostile campaign to acquire Greenland.

    In the text, Trump rejected an overture from Norway’s Jonas Gahr Store to “de-escalate” his demands that Greenland be sold to the United States or taken by force. “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote in the text, which was first reported by PBS News.

    “That’s rhetoric that we’ve never seen from a US president before,” Ambassador Mike Carpenter, a senior director for Europe on the Biden administration’s National Security Council, told Vanity Fair. “He’s essentially saying, if you read between the lines, ‘you didn’t give me the Nobel Peace Prize, so I’m going to use coercive force to take territory from one of your neighbors.’”

    The text was so striking that some on social media doubted its authenticity. But it is real. A European official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told me the text was forwarded to their ambassador in Washington. The text is one of those Donald Trump era shockers that unites the right and left in slack-jawed horror. Even before it was first reported, the Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board had published a piece decrying the Greenland campaign as “reckless” and “nonsensical.”

    “This is the fucking Mad King tweeting and it’s just remarkable how many senior people in this administration have no fucking balls, no fucking spine, and are peddling this crap like it’s rational,” said one incensed former NSC official I spoke with Monday morning, who declined to be named in order to speak candidly. “Truly, those names need to be kept on a sheet of paper and remembered in the future, what they said and did at this moment.”

    What of Trump’s case for why the United States needs Greenland? “The world sees this as the Mad King pontificating,” the anonymous official reiterated. “And it’s only a certain narrow circle of Americans, somehow, that is trying to gaslight themselves into believing that it’s true. It’s crazy.”

    John Bolton and Donald Trump on February 12, 2019.

    Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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    Aidan McLaughlin

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  • Trump ties his stance on Greenland to not getting Nobel Peace Prize, European officials say

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    President Donald Trump linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize, telling Norway’s prime minister that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace,” two European officials said Monday.Trump’s message to Jonas Gahr Støre appears to ratchet up a standoff between Washington and its closest allies over his threats to take over Greenland, a self-governing territory of NATO member Denmark. On Saturday, Trump announced a 10% import tax starting in February on goods from eight nations that have rallied around Denmark and Greenland, including Norway.Those countries issued a forceful rebuke. But British Prime Minister Keir Starmer sought to de-escalate tensions on Monday. While the White House has not ruled taking control of the strategic Arctic island by force, Starmer said he did not believe military action would occur.”I think this can be resolved and should be resolved through calm discussion,” he said.Still, the American leader’s message to Gahr Støre could further fracture a U.S.-European relationship already strained by differences over how to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine, previous rounds of tariffs, military spending and migration policy.In a sign of how tensions have increased in recent days, thousands of Greenlanders marched over the weekend in protest of any effort to take over their island. Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post Monday that the tariff threats would not change their stance.“We will not be pressured,” he wrote.Meanwhile, Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for business, minerals, energy, justice and equality, told The Associated Press that she was moved by the quick response of allies to the tariff threat and said it showed that countries realize “this is about more than Greenland.”“I think a lot of countries are afraid that if they let Greenland go, what would be next?”Trump sends a message to the Norwegian leaderAccording to two European officials, Trump’s message to Gahr Støre read in part: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”It concluded: “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said it had been forwarded to multiple European ambassadors in Washington. PBS first reported on the content of Trump’s note.U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the president’s approach in Greenland during a brief Q&A with reporters in Davos, Switzerland, which is hosting the World Economic Forum meeting this week.“I think it’s a complete canard that the president would be doing this because of the Nobel,” Bessent said, immediately after saying he did not “know anything about the president’s letter to Norway.”Bessent insisted Trump “is looking at Greenland as a strategic asset for the United States,” adding that “we are not going to outsource our hemispheric security to anyone else.”The White House did not respond to questions about the message or the context for Trump sending it.Gahr Støre confirmed Monday that he had received a text message the day before from Trump but did not release its contents.The Norwegian leader said Trump’s message was a reply to an earlier missive sent on behalf of himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, in which they conveyed their opposition to the tariff announcement, pointed to a need to de-escalate, and proposed a telephone conversation among the three leaders.“Norway’s position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter,” the Norwegian leader said in a statement. “As regards the Nobel Peace Prize, I have clearly explained, including to President Trump what is well known, the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee and not the Norwegian Government.”He told TV2 Norway that he hadn’t responded to the message, but “I still believe it’s wise to talk,” and he hopes to talk with Trump in Davos this week.The Norwegian Nobel Committee is an independent body whose five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament.Trump has openly coveted the peace prize, which the committee awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado last year. Last week, Machado presented her Nobel medal to Trump, who said he planned to keep it though the committee said the prize can’t be revoked, transferred or shared with others.Starmer says a trade war is in no one’s interestIn his latest threat of tariffs, Trump indicated they would be retaliation for last week’s deployment of symbolic numbers of troops from the European countries to Greenland — though he also suggested that he was using the tariffs as leverage to negotiate with Denmark.European governments said that the troops traveled to the island to assess Arctic security, part of a response to Trump’s own concerns about interference from Russia and China.Starmer on Monday called Trump’s threat of tariffs “completely wrong” and said that a trade war is in no one’s interest.He added that “being pragmatic does not mean being passive and partnership does not mean abandoning principles.”Six of the eight countries targeted are part of the 27-member European Union, which operates as a single economic zone in terms of trade. European Council President Antonio Costa said Sunday that the bloc’s leaders expressed “readiness to defend ourselves against any form of coercion.” He announced a summit for Thursday evening.Starmer indicated that Britain, which is not part of the EU, is not planning to consider retaliatory tariffs.“My focus is on making sure we don’t get to that stage,” he said.Denmark’s defense minister and Greenland’s foreign minister are expected to meet NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Brussels on Monday, a meeting that was planned before the latest escalation.___Associated Press writers Josh Boak in West Palm Beach, Florida; Emma Burrows in Nuuk, Greenland; and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

    President Donald Trump linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize, telling Norway’s prime minister that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace,” two European officials said Monday.

    Trump’s message to Jonas Gahr Støre appears to ratchet up a standoff between Washington and its closest allies over his threats to take over Greenland, a self-governing territory of NATO member Denmark. On Saturday, Trump announced a 10% import tax starting in February on goods from eight nations that have rallied around Denmark and Greenland, including Norway.

    Those countries issued a forceful rebuke. But British Prime Minister Keir Starmer sought to de-escalate tensions on Monday. While the White House has not ruled taking control of the strategic Arctic island by force, Starmer said he did not believe military action would occur.

    “I think this can be resolved and should be resolved through calm discussion,” he said.

    Still, the American leader’s message to Gahr Støre could further fracture a U.S.-European relationship already strained by differences over how to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine, previous rounds of tariffs, military spending and migration policy.

    In a sign of how tensions have increased in recent days, thousands of Greenlanders marched over the weekend in protest of any effort to take over their island. Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post Monday that the tariff threats would not change their stance.

    “We will not be pressured,” he wrote.

    Meanwhile, Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for business, minerals, energy, justice and equality, told The Associated Press that she was moved by the quick response of allies to the tariff threat and said it showed that countries realize “this is about more than Greenland.”

    “I think a lot of countries are afraid that if they let Greenland go, what would be next?”

    Trump sends a message to the Norwegian leader

    According to two European officials, Trump’s message to Gahr Støre read in part: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”

    It concluded: “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”

    The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said it had been forwarded to multiple European ambassadors in Washington. PBS first reported on the content of Trump’s note.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the president’s approach in Greenland during a brief Q&A with reporters in Davos, Switzerland, which is hosting the World Economic Forum meeting this week.

    “I think it’s a complete canard that the president would be doing this because of the Nobel,” Bessent said, immediately after saying he did not “know anything about the president’s letter to Norway.”

    Bessent insisted Trump “is looking at Greenland as a strategic asset for the United States,” adding that “we are not going to outsource our hemispheric security to anyone else.”

    The White House did not respond to questions about the message or the context for Trump sending it.

    Gahr Støre confirmed Monday that he had received a text message the day before from Trump but did not release its contents.

    The Norwegian leader said Trump’s message was a reply to an earlier missive sent on behalf of himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, in which they conveyed their opposition to the tariff announcement, pointed to a need to de-escalate, and proposed a telephone conversation among the three leaders.

    “Norway’s position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter,” the Norwegian leader said in a statement. “As regards the Nobel Peace Prize, I have clearly explained, including to President Trump what is well known, the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee and not the Norwegian Government.”

    He told TV2 Norway that he hadn’t responded to the message, but “I still believe it’s wise to talk,” and he hopes to talk with Trump in Davos this week.

    The Norwegian Nobel Committee is an independent body whose five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament.

    Trump has openly coveted the peace prize, which the committee awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado last year. Last week, Machado presented her Nobel medal to Trump, who said he planned to keep it though the committee said the prize can’t be revoked, transferred or shared with others.

    Starmer says a trade war is in no one’s interest

    In his latest threat of tariffs, Trump indicated they would be retaliation for last week’s deployment of symbolic numbers of troops from the European countries to Greenland — though he also suggested that he was using the tariffs as leverage to negotiate with Denmark.

    European governments said that the troops traveled to the island to assess Arctic security, part of a response to Trump’s own concerns about interference from Russia and China.

    Starmer on Monday called Trump’s threat of tariffs “completely wrong” and said that a trade war is in no one’s interest.

    He added that “being pragmatic does not mean being passive and partnership does not mean abandoning principles.”

    Six of the eight countries targeted are part of the 27-member European Union, which operates as a single economic zone in terms of trade. European Council President Antonio Costa said Sunday that the bloc’s leaders expressed “readiness to defend ourselves against any form of coercion.” He announced a summit for Thursday evening.

    Starmer indicated that Britain, which is not part of the EU, is not planning to consider retaliatory tariffs.

    “My focus is on making sure we don’t get to that stage,” he said.

    Denmark’s defense minister and Greenland’s foreign minister are expected to meet NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Brussels on Monday, a meeting that was planned before the latest escalation.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Josh Boak in West Palm Beach, Florida; Emma Burrows in Nuuk, Greenland; and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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  • Global shock and panic over Trump’s threats on Greenland

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    Global shock and panic over Trump’s threats on Greenland – CBS News









































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    NATO allies are reacting to President Trump’s threats of tariffs against nations that oppose his mission to take over Greenland. CBS News’ Willie James Inman and Holly Williams report.

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  • Trump escalates Greenland standoff with allies, linking it to perceived Nobel Peace Prize snub

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    America’s European allies stood united Monday against President Trump’s escalating campaign to take control of Greenland, accusing him of blackmail with a new threat of tariffs if they continue rejecting his bid for the U.S. to acquire the vast island. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, appeared to hint that he was still willing to use the U.S. military to achieve his objective.

    In a message sent to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and shared with other NATO allies, Mr. Trump said that due to the decision to award someone other than himself the Nobel Peace Prize this year, he no longer feels “an obligation to think purely of Peace,” and that he “can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”  

    In the next sentence, Mr. Trump refers to his controversial demand that the U.S. take ownership of Greenland, which has been a territory of American ally Denmark for centuries. He renews his claim that only full U.S. control can prevent the strategic Arctic island from falling into the hands of China or Russia.

    Trump’s claims about Greenland and U.S. security

    America’s closest allies in NATO have rejected Mr. Trump’s argument, along with U.S. lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, that the U.S. needs to own Greenland for security reasons.

    Getty/iStockphoto


    They note that Greenland already falls under the transatlantic alliance’s protection as a Danish territory, that the U.S. has had at least one military base on the island since World War II and Denmark has given an open invitation for Washington to boost that defense presence in partnership with its allies.

    Despite those facts, and efforts by Denmark and other European NATO members to show an understanding of and willingness to address rising competition over control of vital new shipping lanes around the resource-rich island, Mr. Trump claims again in his message to Norway’s leader that “the World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”

    He argues that Denmark is incapable of securing the Arctic territory in the face of Russian and Chinese threats — threats that Senator Mark Warner, the Democratic vice chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, called fictitious over the weekend.

    “Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China,” Mr. Trump wrote, ignoring the fact that, for almost 80 years, since the U.S. and its European allies committed to the principle of joint security with NATO’s founding treaty, Greenland’s protection has been a shared responsibility.

    Mr. Trump questions in the note, as he’s done previously, Denmark’s right to any claim over Greenland, arguing that the basis is only that “a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.”

    Denmark became the colonial power in Greenland in the early 18th century, about 50 years before the United States became a sovereign nation with its own navy. Greenland remained a Danish colony until 1953, when the island gained its current semi-autonomy. 

    Protesters rally in Greenland against Trump annexation threat

    Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen waves a flag during a protest against President Trump’s demand that the Arctic island be ceded to the U.S., in Nuuk, Greenland, Jan. 17, 2026.

    Marko Djurica/REUTERS


    Though the population is tiny at around 60,000 people, Greenland has its own elected government, and both the island’s leaders and the Greenlandic people have made it abundantly clear that they do not want to become part of the U.S.

    Norway’s leader responds to Trump’s message

    The Norwegian government shared a statement on Monday from Prime Minister Støre in which he confirms that he received Mr. Trump’s message on Sunday afternoon.

    He said it came in response to a text message he’d sent along with Finland’s President Alexander Stubb. 

    “In our message to Trump we conveyed our opposition to his announced tariff increases against Norway, Finland and select other countries. We pointed to the need to de-escalate and proposed a telephone conversation between Trump, Stubb and myself on the same day. The response from Trump came shortly after the message was sent,” Støre said in the statement, adding that it was Mr. Trump’s “decision to share his message with other NATO leaders.”

    NATO leaders at summit

    NATO leaders attend the North Atlantic Council plenary meeting at a summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25, 2025.

    LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP/Getty


    “Norway’s position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter. We also support that NATO in a responsible way is taking steps to strengthen security and stability in the Arctic,” said Støre. 

    He added, “As regards the Nobel Peace Prize, I have clearly explained, including to President Trump what is well known, the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee and not the Norwegian Government.”

    U.K. leader doubts Trump will use U.S. military to take Greenland

    Mr. Trump stunned America’s NATO allies over the weekend by threatening to impose new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European nations if they continue to reject his demands to take over Greenland.

    After holding talks among themselves on Sunday, the eight countries issued a joint statement saying they were “committed to strengthening Arctic security as a shared transatlantic interest,” while reiterating their support for Denmark and Greenland.

    They said they were “ready to engage in a dialogue based on the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that we stand firmly behind,” and warned that threats of tariffs undermine “transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral.”

    British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has maintained good relations with Mr. Trump and spoke with him on the phone Sunday, acknowledged in televised remarks on Monday morning that the Arctic region “will require greater attention, greater investment and stronger collective defense” and said the U.S. would “be central to that effort and the U.K. stands ready to contribute fully alongside our allies, through NATO.”

    UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer Sets Out Approach to US After Trump Tariff Threat

    U.K. Prime Minster Keir Starmer is seen during a news conference in London, England, Jan. 19, 2026.

    Tolga Akmen/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty


    “But there is a principle here that cannot be set aside, because it goes to the heart of how stable and trusted international cooperation works, and so any decision about the future status of Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone,” said Starmer.

    “Denmark is a close ally of the U.K. and of the U.S. — a proud NATO member that has stood shoulder to shoulder with us, including at real human cost in recent decades,” Starmer said, alluding to Danish troops fighting alongside U.S. and British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, as part of the NATO alliance.

    “Alliances endure because they’re built on respect and partnership, not pressure. That is why I said the use of tariffs against allies is completely wrong. It is not the right way to resolve differences within an alliance, nor is it helpful to frame efforts to strengthen Greenland’s security as a justification for economic pressure,” he said. “A trade war is in no one’s interest.”

    As for Mr. Trump not ruling out the use of the American military to seize territory from a NATO ally, Starmer said he didn’t believe it would come to that. 

    “I don’t, actually,” he said. “I think this can and should be resolved through calm discussion, but with the application of principles I’ve set out in terms of who decides the future of Greenland.” 

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  • The troops on high alert to fight alongside Nato

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    Troops from the North West are on high alert to deploy to Nato countries in Eastern Europe if conflict in the region escalates.

    The 1st Battalion of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment is serving as Nato’s Forward Land Forces Strategic Reserve (FLF), meaning that should the call come in, the battalion would be ready to fight in as little as 10 days alongside Nato forces from around the world.

    Lt Rhuari Stewart, in command of an anti-tank unit, said the troops were not nervous.

    “You take it in your stride, it’s part of being in the Army. There’s always a potential that something might happen,” he said.

    Lt Rhuari Stewart says the troops are not nervous [BBC]

    Some of the troops from the regiment are already on the ground in Estonia, where British troops have command of Nato defences.

    Meanwhile, at Weeton Barracks, Lancashire, troops from the Burma Brigade were getting hands-on experience with drones.

    Their unmanned aerial technology varies in size from approximately a meter in length to being small enough to be fired out of a gun barrel.

    2nd Lt Connor Flinter said: “It’s really useful because it enables us to use them in whatever environment we are in, whether urban or rural.”

    Several soldiers crowd around a small screen on a bag on the ground. Several boots can be seen to the right of the picture

    A group of soldiers gets familiar with drone technology [BBC]

    Some of regiment are heading to France in February for Exercise Gaulish – an integration with French forces on a training exercise at CENZUB, a purpose built small town used for military training.

    Stewart said exercises with different countries were vital to ensure troops can work together on the battlefield: “We’re learning how they fight, learning their weapon systems, their kit and their technology.”

    Flinter said it had been interesting to see how the French approached difficult scenarios: “They most predominantly use vehicles, whereas we are light infantry on our feet, and try and be a bit more sneaky,” he said.

    A man holding a rifle peers around a corner outside several buildings. A tank can be seen on the road ahead of him.

    UK Troops training at CENZUB, a purpose built town for military exercises [Ministry of Defence]

    If successful, some troops from the regiment may be deployed into French units in Romania.

    The battalion was given the role of FLF during the summer when it was first introduced, and will remain on high alert for at least three years.

    Stewart said: “Whilst we might not speak the same language, we all share that same ethos, there’s a lot of things in common between us, and I think that’s what’s so special about Nato.”

    Listen to the best of BBC Radio Lancashire on Sounds and follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.

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  • Trump issues stern warning to NATO ahead of Vance’s high-stakes Greenland meeting

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    President Donald Trump sent a warning to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ahead of Vice President JD Vance’s high-stakes meeting with Danish and Greenlandic officials.

    “The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of national security,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Wednesday. He added that the acquisition was “vital for the Golden Dome that we are building.” The “Golden Dome” is a cutting-edge missile defense system meant to intercept threats targeting the American homeland, similar to the Iron Dome used in Israel.

    “NATO should be leading the way for us to get it. IF WE DON’T, RUSSIA OR CHINA WILL, AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! Militarily, without the vast power of the United States, much of which I built during my first term, and am now bringing to a new and even higher level, NATO would not be an effective force or deterrent — not even close! They know that, and so do I. NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES. Anything less than that is unacceptable,” Trump added.

    JOHNSON: ‘NO BOOTS ON THE GROUND’ FOR TRUMP’S GREENLAND ACQUISITION PLANS AMID MILITARY SPECULATION

    President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte attend the start of a NATO leaders summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25, 2025.  (Ludovic Marin/Pool via Reuters)

    Trump and his administration’s push for the U.S. to acquire Greenland has caused tension with NATO allies who assert that the semiautonomous Danish territory should determine its own future. 

    The post comes ahead of Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s meeting with the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers at the White House on Wednesday morning. 

    Vance and Rubio will be meeting with Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt.

    Homes in Nuuk, Greenland

    Houses in Nuuk, Greenland, Jan. 13, 2026. (Marko Djurica/Reuters)

    WHITE HOUSE SAYS ‘RANGE OF OPTIONS,’ INCLUDING US MILITARY, ON TABLE AS TRUMP RENEWS PUSH TO ACQUIRE GREENLAND

    In a follow-up post on Truth Social on Wednesday morning, Trump shared a report by Just The News stating that the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (DDIS) issued a warning regarding Russian and Chinese military ambitions toward and expansion around Greenland in a recent assessment.

    “NATO: Tell Denmark to get them out of here, NOW! Two dogsleds won’t do it! Only the USA can!!!” Trump wrote. “Danish intel warned last year about Russian and Chinese military goals toward Greenland and Arctic.” 

    “In recent years, the United States has significantly increased its security policy focus on the Arctic, while Russia continues its military build-up, and China continues to develop its capacity to operate both submarines and surface vessels in the region,” DDIS reportedly said in its Intelligence Outlook 2025. The DDIS noted that, “Neither the war in Ukraine nor the increased US focus on Greenland and the Arctic has altered Russia’s long-term interests and objectives in the region.”

    A slogan baseball cap displayed in a Greenland town reflects opposition to U.S. influence

    A “Make America Go Away” baseball cap, distributed for free by Danish artist Jens Martin Skibsted, is arranged in Sisimiut, Greenland, on March 30, 2025. (Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

    CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

    Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a news conference in Copenhagen on Tuesday that “if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU,” the AP reported.

    Trump later responded to Nielsen, saying “I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know anything about him. But, that’s going to be a big problem for him,” according to the AP.

    Vance’s office and the Embassy of Denmark in the U.S. did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Rachel Wolf is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital and FOX Business.

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  • How the US could take over Greenland and the potential challenges

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    WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump wants to own Greenland. He has repeatedly said the United States must take control of the strategically located and mineral-rich island, which is a semiautonomous region that’s part of NATO ally Denmark.

    Officials from Denmark, Greenland and the United States met Thursday in Washington and will meet again next week to discuss a renewed push by the White House, which is considering a range of options, including using military force, to acquire the island.

    Trump said Friday he is going to do “something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”

    If it’s not done “the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way,” he said without elaborating what that could entail. In an interview Thursday, he told The New York Times that he wants to own Greenland because “ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”

    Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO, and Greenlanders say they don’t want to become part of the U.S.

    This is a look at some of the ways the U.S. could take control of Greenland and the potential challenges.

    Military action could alter global relations

    Trump and his officials have indicated they want to control Greenland to enhance American security and explore business and mining deals. But Imran Bayoumi, an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said the sudden focus on Greenland is also the result of decades of neglect by several U.S. presidents towards Washington’s position in the Arctic.

    The current fixation is partly down to “the realization we need to increase our presence in the Arctic, and we don’t yet have the right strategy or vision to do so,” he said.

    If the U.S. took control of Greenland by force, it would plunge NATO into a crisis, possibly an existential one.

    While Greenland is the largest island in the world, it has a population of around 57,000 and doesn’t have its own military. Defense is provided by Denmark, whose military is dwarfed by that of the U.S.

    It’s unclear how the remaining members of NATO would respond if the U.S. decided to forcibly take control of the island or if they would come to Denmark’s aid.

    “If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” Frederiksen has said.

    Trump said he needs control of the island to guarantee American security, citing the threat from Russian and Chinese ships in the region, but “it’s not true” said Lin Mortensgaard, an expert on the international politics of the Arctic at the Danish Institute for International Studies, or DIIS.

    While there are probably Russian submarines – as there are across the Arctic region – there are no surface vessels, Mortensgaard said. China has research vessels in the Central Arctic Ocean, and while the Chinese and Russian militaries have done joint military exercises in the Arctic, they have taken place closer to Alaska, she said.

    Bayoumi, of the Atlantic Council, said he doubted Trump would take control of Greenland by force because it’s unpopular with both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and would likely “fundamentally alter” U.S. relationships with allies worldwide.

    The U.S. already has access to Greenland under a 1951 defense agreement, and Denmark and Greenland would be “quite happy” to accommodate a beefed up American military presence, Mortensgaard said.

    For that reason, “blowing up the NATO alliance” for something Trump has already, doesn’t make sense, said Ulrik Pram Gad, an expert on Greenland at DIIS.

    Bilateral agreements may assist effort

    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a select group of U.S. lawmakers this week that it was the Republican administration’s intention to eventually purchase Greenland, as opposed to using military force. Danish and Greenlandic officials have previously said the island isn’t for sale.

    It’s not clear how much buying the island could cost, or if the U.S. would be buying it from Denmark or Greenland.

    Washington also could boost its military presence in Greenland “through cooperation and diplomacy,” without taking it over, Bayoumi said.

    One option could be for the U.S. to get a veto over security decisions made by the Greenlandic government, as it has in islands in the Pacific Ocean, Gad said.

    Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands have a Compact of Free Association, or COFA, with the U.S.

    That would give Washington the right to operate military bases and make decisions about the islands’ security in exchange for U.S. security guarantees and around $7 billion of yearly economic assistance, according to the Congressional Research Service.

    It’s not clear how much that would improve upon Washington’s current security strategy. The U.S. already operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, and can bring as many troops as it wants under existing agreements.

    Influence operations expected to fail

    Greenlandic politician Aaja Chemnitz told The Associated Press that Greenlanders want more rights, including independence, but don’t want to become part of the U.S.

    Gad suggested influence operations to persuade Greenlanders to join the U.S. would likely fail. He said that is because the community on the island is small and the language is “inaccessible.”

    Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lkke Rasmussen summoned the top U.S. official in Denmark in August to complain that “foreign actors” were seeking to influence the country’s future. Danish media reported that at least three people with connections to Trump carried out covert influence operations in Greenland.

    Even if the U.S. managed to take control of Greenland, it would likely come with a large bill, Gad said. That’s because Greenlanders currently have Danish citizenship and access to the Danish welfare system, including free health care and schooling.

    To match that, “Trump would have to build a welfare state for Greenlanders that he doesn’t want for his own citizens,” Gad said.

    Disagreement unlikely to be resolved

    Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations to 200 at the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest of the island, Rasmussen said last year. The base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

    U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News on Thursday that Denmark has neglected its missile defense obligations in Greenland, but Mortensgaard said that it makes “little sense to criticize Denmark,” because the main reason why the U.S. operates the Pituffik base in the north of the island is to provide early detection of missiles.

    The best outcome for Denmark would be to update the defense agreement, which allows the U.S. to have a military presence on the island and have Trump sign it with a “gold-plated signature,” Gad said.

    But he suggested that’s unlikely because Greenland is “handy” to the U.S president.

    When Trump wants to change the news agenda – including distracting from domestic political problems – “he can just say the word ‘Greenland’ and this starts all over again,” Gad said.

    Copyright © 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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  • Column: Trump’s 626 overseas strikes aren’t ‘America First.’ What’s his real agenda?

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    Who knew that by “America First,” President Trump meant all of the Americas?

    In puzzling over that question at least, I’ve got company in Marjorie Taylor Greene, the now-former congresswoman from Georgia and onetime Trump devotee who remains stalwart in his America First movement. Greene tweeted on Saturday, just ahead of Trump’s triumphal news conference about the United States’ decapitation of Venezuela’s government by the military’s middle-of-the-night nabbing of Nicolás Maduro and his wife: “This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end. Boy were we wrong.”

    Wrong indeed. Nearly a year into his second term, Trump has done nothing but exacerbate the domestic problems that Greene identified as America First priorities — bringing down the “increasing cost of living, housing, healthcare” within the 50 states — even as he’s pursued the “never ending military aggression” and foreign adventurism that America Firsters scorn, or at least used to. Another Trump con. Another lie.

    Here’s a stunning stat, thanks to Military Times: In 2025, Trump ordered 626 missile strikes worldwide, 71 more than President Biden did in his entire four-year term. Targets, so far, have included Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria, Iran and the waters off Venezuela and Colombia. Lately he’s threatened to hit Iran again if it kills demonstrators who have been marching in Tehran’s streets to protest the country’s woeful economic conditions. (“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump posted Friday.)

    The president doesn’t like “forever wars,” he’s said many times, but he sure loves quick booms and cinematic secret ops. Leave aside, for now, the attacks in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. It’s Trump’s new claim to “run” Venezuela that has signaled the beginning of his mind-boggling bid for U.S. hegemony over the Western Hemisphere. Any such ambition raises the potential for quick actions to become quagmires.

    As Stephen Miller, perhaps Trump’s closest and most like-minded (read: unhinged) advisor, described the administration’s worldview on Monday to CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

    You know, that old, amoral iron law: “Might makes right.” Music to Vladimir Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s ears as they seek hegemonic expansion of their own, confident that the United States has given up the moral high ground from which to object.

    But it was Trump, the branding maven, who gave the White House worldview its name — his own, of course: the Donroe Doctrine. And it was Trump who spelled out what that might mean in practice for the Americas, in a chest-thumping, war-mongering performance on Sunday returning to Washington aboard Air Force One. The wannabe U.S. king turns out to be a wannabe emperor of an entire hemisphere.

    “We’re in charge,” Trump said of Venezuela to reporters. “We’re gonna run it. Fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time.” He added, “If they don’t behave, we’ll do a second strike.” He went on, suggestively, ominously: “Colombia is very sick too,” and “Cuba is ready to fall.” Looking northward, he coveted more: “We need Greenland from a national security situation.”

    Separately, Trump recently has said that Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro “does have to watch his ass,” and that, given Trump’s unhappiness with the ungenuflecting Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, “Something’s going to have to be done with Mexico.” In their cases as well as Maduro’s, Trump’s ostensible complaints have been that each has been complacent or complicit with drug cartels.

    And yet, just last month Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court and given a 45-year sentence for his central role in “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.” Hernández helped traffickers ship 400 tons of cocaine into the United States — to “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.” And Trump pardoned him after less than two years in prison.

    So it’s implausible that a few weeks later, the U.S. president truly believes in taking a hard line against leaders he suspects of abetting the drug trade. Maybe Trump’s real motivation is something other than drug-running?

    In his appearance after the Maduro arrest, Trump used the word “oil” 21 times. On Tuesday, he announced, in a social media post, of course, that he was taking control of the proceeds from up to 50 barrels of Venezuelan oil. (Not that he cares, but that would violate the Constitution, which gives Congress power to appropriate money that comes into the U.S. Treasury.)

    Or perhaps, in line with the Monroe Doctrine, our current president has a retro urge to dominate half the world.

    Lately his focus has been on Venezuela and South America, but North America is also in his sights. Trump has long said he might target Mexico to hit cartels and that the United States’ other North American neighbor, Canada, should become the 51st state. But it’s a third part of North America — Greenland — that he’s most intent on.

    The icy island has fewer than 60,000 people but mineral wealth that’s increasingly accessible given the climate warming that Trump calls a hoax. For him to lay claim isn’t just a problem for the Americas. It’s an existential threat to NATO given that Greenland is an autonomous part of NATO ally Denmark — as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned.

    Not in 80 years did anyone imagine that NATO — bound by its tenet that an attack on one member is an attack on all — would be attacked from within, least of all from the United States. In a remarkable statement on Tuesday, U.S. allies rallied around Denmark: “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

    Trump’s insistence that controlling Greenland is essential to U.S. national security is nuts. The United States has had military bases there since World War II, and all of NATO sees Greenland as critical to defend against Russian and Chinese encroachment in the Arctic. Still, Trump hasn’t ruled out the use of force to take the island.

    He imagines himself to be the emperor of the Americas — all of it. Americas First.

    Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
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