Europe’s leaders condemned U.S. President Donald Trump after he questioned the value of NATO allies and floated military options over Greenland, a one-two punch that further rattled the transatlantic alliance and revived legal and sovereignty concerns from Brussels to Copenhagen.
In an interview Thursday in Davos, Switzerland, Trump downplayed allied sacrifices in Afghanistan and cast doubt on whether NATO partners would aid Washington if needed. “We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them,” he told Fox News. “You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that. And they did — they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
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The remarks drew a swift backlash. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the statement “insulting and frankly appalling,” noting British forces suffered casualties in the U.S.-led war. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk also rebuked Trump, pointing to Poland’s losses in Afghanistan.
The furor dovetailed with a separate confrontation over Greenland. Trump suggested military action could be an option in his bid to acquire the Arctic island, which is a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen pushed back, saying security, investment and economic issues were open to discussion, but “we cannot negotiate on our sovereignty.”
Trump later claimed to have secured the framework of a deal with NATO regarding Greenland’s future, but his threats and rhetoric were denounced by European officials as “neo-colonialism” and as leverage inconsistent with alliance solidarity. French President Emmanuel Macron accused Washington of trying to “weaken and subordinate Europe” by demanding “maximum concessions” and using tariffs as pressure “against territorial sovereignty,” speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said “transatlantic relations have definitely taken a big blow over the last week.” Former European Council President Charles Michel told CNN the relationship “as we’ve known it for decades is dead.”
Legal experts and critics warned that any threat or use of force over Greenland would clash with international law, including the U.N. Charter’s prohibition on coercion against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. With both the United States and Denmark in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, military action against Greenland would also run counter to NATO’s founding treaty.
Following intensified criticism from European leaders, Trump backed away from threatened military action and tariffs tied to the dispute.
Even as tensions cooled, the administration underscored Greenland’s strategic appeal. Speaking on stage at the WEF, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Trump “believes that Greenland is essential for the Golden Dome missile shield” and argued the island is becoming “more and more attractive for foreign conquest.” He added that Trump “very strongly believes that it must be part of the United States to prevent a conflict, rather than getting the U.S. engaged and exposed into a hot conflict.”
Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, offered a cautionary counterpoint. “It is important, but we are already able to protect it. In fact, by treaty, we are already obliged to,” he told Xinhua when asked whether Greenland is crucial to U.S. national security.
Greenland hosts a key U.S. military base, and the accelerating thaw in the Arctic is opening new shipping routes and access to natural resources — a shift that has amplified interest from global powers and added new pressure to long-standing security arrangements.
The latest episode underscores how quickly disputes over alliance burdens and Arctic strategy can spill into wider questions of sovereignty, law and trust. For many European officials, the core issue is less about the fate of a remote island than the credibility of mutual defense commitments that have anchored NATO for decades — and whether they can withstand another round of political shock from Washington.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
