Europe draws red line on Greenland after a year of trying to pacify Trump
For the past year, European friends-turned-frenemies of the United States have delicately navigated one shock after another, hoping for the best as President Donald Trump threatened to lay waste to the global order.
When Trump scolded NATO allies, lambasted Ukraine’s president, laid on tariffs and framed ratified treaties as conditional deals, the go-to play by European leaders was to placate — with military spending pledges, trade concessions, disciplined summits, in language scrubbed of morality or judgment.
It wasn’t always elegant, or dignified, but the policy of strategic acquiescence seemed to be working, sort of. U.S. arms kept flowing to Ukraine, an all-out trade war was averted and Trump deigned to say some nice things about NATO.
Then came the strikes that rocked Caracas, explosions that echoed in capitals around the world. Governments that spent years preaching restraint, legality and multilateralism found themselves scrambling for words to express unease without triggering Trump’s fury.
The precarious strategy of managing Trump, rather than confronting him, looked more exposed when the president and his inner circle revived their talk of “getting” Greenland and even floated the idea of military action. To European ears, it sounded less like bluster than a retrograde worldview now backed by unvarnished American might: power over process, leverage over law, loyalty conditioned on utility.
“It’s approaching a full-on existential crisis,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. “It could be far greater than Russia invading Ukraine because Russia is an adversary. Now, it’s the guarantor of European security undermining European security.” [Continue reading…]
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) responded to Stephen Miller saying that Greenland, which belongs to Denmark, should become part of the United States:
GOP Sen. Rand Paul said Wednesday he opposes any U.S. military action in Greenland as the White House says it is exploring all options for acquisition of the territory.
“It won’t happen under my watch,” Paul said on “CBS Mornings” about military action in Greenland. “I will do everything to stop any kind of military takeover of Greenland.”
The Kentucky senator, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has long opposed offensive U.S. military action overseas. [Continue reading…]