Trump Says the U.S. “Needs” Greenland—Europe Should Take Him at His Word
When a sitting U.S. president openly claims the right to seize foreign territory for “security” and resources, Europe is no longer dealing with rhetoric but with timing. Yesterday should have been another clear wake-up call that these threats are no longer hypothetical.
As with Venezuela, which Trump sought to act against during his first term, Greenland has been on his agenda since at least 2019. The difference is that during his first term, there were still restraints—Congress, functioning agencies, and institutional resistance capable of slowing or blocking his most extreme actions. Those guardrails are now gone. Since returning to power, Trump has repeatedly threatened to take over Greenland illegally, explicitly refusing to rule out the use of military force. Europe should not dismiss these threats as mere political theater or propaganda for domestic consumption, because they reflect a consistent pattern in which Trump’s territorial ambitions, resource extraction, and personal enrichment are openly asserted as legitimate uses of American power.
Trump’s plan to effectively “run” Venezuela after using military force to remove Nicolás Maduro established this pattern clearly. He did not justify the operation by citing democracy, humanitarian concerns, or regional stability, nor did he attempt to construct a moral rationale for leadership change. He stated plainly that the objective was oil. That framing removed any ambiguity about motive and made clear that sovereignty, legality, and civilian consequences were secondary to material gain. It also provided the template through which Trump’s later claims, including those concerning Greenland, should be understood.
Those plans were reaffirmed when Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, posted an image of Greenland wrapped in the U.S. flag with the caption “Soon,” just hours after the U.S. military action in Venezuela. The post did not go unnoticed in Denmark, where officials publicly pushed back, underscoring that Greenland’s sovereignty is not negotiable.
A year ago, I warned that at best, a second Trump term would result in American neutrality, the sabotage of NATO, and the abandonment of longstanding security guarantees—and that at worst, the United States could become a direct threat to European security. Sadly, that warning continues to be more accurate by the day. The United States is no longer merely disengaging from European security; it is actively repositioning itself as a revisionist power that treats allied territory as negotiable, borders as provisional, and international law as optional when it interferes with Trump’s political or financial objectives.
This shift has already been visible in the steady drawdown of U.S. troops in Europe. While framed publicly as “burden sharing” and “strategic realignment,” the effect has been a clear weakening of deterrence and reassurance. Forward-deployed forces that once signaled U.S. commitment are being reduced, rotational deployments are thinning, and long-standing assumptions about an automatic American response are being dismantled. As a result, European countries are left exposed not only to traditional adversaries but to growing uncertainty created by the U.S.
Trump’s claim that the United States “needs” Greenland for national security should not be read as neutral strategic analysis, especially given his repeated refusal to rule out the use of military force. And make no mistake, Trump has no qualms about putting the United States into confrontation with NATO, and such a crisis would serve his long-standing objective of dismantling the alliance.
That threat was reinforced over the summer, when Denmark summoned U.S. diplomats following reports that individuals linked to Trump were engaged in covert influence operations inside Greenland. According to reporting, these activities included identifying politically sympathetic figures, compiling lists of critics, and gathering material intended to portray Denmark as exploitative or illegitimate in U.S. media. The pattern mirrors tactics long used in Russian influence operations, in which internal divisions are deliberately amplified to weaken cohesion and soften resistance ahead of its operations.
Any remaining doubt should have been removed with the recent appointment of a U.S. “special envoy” to Greenland. Last month, Trump publicly stated, again, that the United States “needs” Greenland for national security. “We need Greenland for national security, not for minerals,” Trump told reporters and added that his newly appointed envoy, Jeff Landry, was prepared to “lead the charge” to secure the territory for the United States.
No correction or clarification followed from the White House. The statements were allowed to stand, drawing immediate objections from Denmark and Greenland, whose leaders reiterated that Greenland belongs to Greenlanders and cannot be annexed. The response made clear that the envoy appointment was a deliberate escalation.
This approach reflects Trump’s governing model, in which formal institutions are pushed aside, and foreign policy is handed to family members and business associates with private financial interests. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have been used to run sensitive diplomacy through opaque backchannels that bypass professional diplomats, intelligence agencies, and congressional oversight. The result has been the betrayal of Ukraine, where sovereignty and survival are being traded away in pursuit of business deals with Russia—a terrorist state committing mass atrocities and genocide—because those deals benefit Trump’s inner circle.
Europe must prepare now, because the warning signs have been clear and consistent. Democracy is no longer treated in Washington as a value worth defending, and Congress no longer functions as a real check on executive power, acting instead as a compliant body that approves decisions after they are made—more like the Russian State Duma than an independent legislature capable of constraining the executive. The institutional guardrails that once limited abuse and restrained Trump’s actions are gone.
This is no longer a case of overheated rhetoric racing ahead of policy. The policy is already here. Europe should plan on the assumption that territorial integrity can no longer be taken for granted, that deterrence can no longer be outsourced, and that defending sovereignty may now require preparing not only against Russia and China, but from the United States.
It cannot be underscored enough that our government has been taken over by the mafia.
The world’s stupidest mafia—but the mafia nonetheless.
The one comfort I can take in all this chaos is that all mafia stories—like Greek tragedies before them—end by extreme overreach.
We find ourselves in that stage now. Doesn’t make it easier to live through, but it brings clarity and allows us to orient ourselves vs falling prey to apathy.
As an American whose childhood occurred in the backwash of World War II, the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift I have an incredibly hard time getting my old brain around the fact that we've changed sides and must now be considered an enemy of freedom and democracy in Europe. It hurts even to think that but it is what it is. Denmark and by extension the European Union are in a new Cold War against the United States along with one against Russia that gets hotter by the day. I hope they're up to it.