Donald Trump keeps saying he will have Greenland “by hook or by crook.” Given this declaration of intentions, countries such as France, Germany and Denmark have begun to send soldiers to the territory. Spain is studying it while the French president, Emmanuel Macron, assured the other day that “to remain free”, we had to “be feared”: “To be feared, we must be powerful and to be powerful in this brutal world, we must act faster and with more force.”
From The World Order, they assure that Macron “is right” because Trump has always dealt with relations of force, which means that “if you are stronger than him, he will leave you alone, but if you are weaker, he will mess with you if he wants something from you. And the problem is that we Europeans do not know how to show strength. We do not have the capacity to do so and Trump takes advantage.”
Trump’s new threat
The president knows precisely this lack that Europe has and that is where the threat he made this Saturday night to the countries that had sent troops to Greenland: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Finland comes from. Trump said that until an agreement to purchase the territory is reached, he will impose tariffs of 10% starting February 1, and 25% starting June 1.
Although the threat is for these countries, the European Union is a unit and, therefore, a tariff cannot be imposed on a country like France and it does not affect, for example, Spain or Italy: “In addition, one of the affected countries would be Denmark, which means that it is imposing tariffs on a country that is sending troops to a territory that is under its sovereignty. It is something absolutely insane,” say Fernando Arancón and Eduardo Saldaña.
The break with NATO, the EU strategy and Denmark’s plan
This situation reflects “the breakdown of the transatlantic relationship between the US and Europe”, but far from intimidating the European Union, what it is showing is the unity that exists in the face of the new threats from a Donald Trump who is already tiring Brussels. The response of the 27? The European Parliament has warned that it will not approve the trade agreement signed by the EU and the US in 2025, hitting the president where it hurts most: in his pocket.
Another movement that reflects this unity is the plan being prepared by Denmark: the operation to send troops to Greenland currently covers seven European countries, but Copenhagen intends that this lays the foundations for a broader military operation within the framework of NATO, that is, it invites the US to join these maneuvers while conveying the message that the European countries are going to join.
It seems that Brussels has already given up on the idea of dissuading Trump from taking the island, more than anything because the president already has access to the territory’s resources, can have military personnel there and also access the Arctic routes. Trump’s thing in Greenland is not for national security, “he just wants to put up the flag.” And Europe knows it. Hence its strategy: greater unity and diversifying its alliances to move away from the US.
We have seen it this weekend with the signing of the agreement between the EU and Mercosur, something that Donald Trump “undoubtedly” did not like because we are talking about the largest free trade area in the world: 700 million people. We’ve also seen it with Canada getting closer to China and “learning the lesson that you can’t trust Trump.”
A risky strategy
This strategy is, without a doubt, positive insofar as the European Union needs to find allies outside of the traditional United States, but “it also puts us on a collision course.” Because? “If we sign an agreement to trade more and strengthen ties with Latin American countries (the furthest that the US can consider from its area of influence), the country can also take it as if we are getting into its backyard.”
