Alarm Spreads Among U.S. Allies Over Trump’s Demand for Greenland
European leaders, reluctant to criticize Trump over Venezuela, fear irreparable damage to NATO if he seizes the Danish territory
Jan. 6, 2026 The Wall Street Journal
President Trump’s embrace of military interventionism in Latin America has led to the diplomatic equivalent of embarrassed coughing from the U.S.’s allies in Europe. But his renewed designs on the Danish territory of Greenland are causing growing alarm.
Since Saturday’s U.S. military raid on Caracas that captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, Trump has threatened to use force elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere and redoubled his demand for a U.S. takeover of Greenland.
Denmark has urged the U.S. to stop threatening the territory of a historic ally and warned that any U.S. military operation to seize Greenland would spell the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Major European NATO members rallied to Denmark’s side, calling on the U.S. to choose cooperation, not coercion, in a joint statement on Tuesday.
The past few days have renewed fears in Europe that the Western alliance is fracturing. Trump’s growing taste for big-stick diplomacy in the Americas is adding to fears among traditional allies that the U.S. is actively dismantling the post-World War II international order, based on principles such as protecting the sovereignty of states and limiting the use of military force.
In its place, allies fear, is a division of the world into great-power spheres of influence, with the U.S., China and Russia becoming regional hegemons while curtailing the sovereignty of smaller countries.
Faced with that specter, European governments’ instinct has been to try to salvage what’s left of the West, including by taking an emollient line on U.S. intervention in Venezuela to avoid angering Trump.
In European capitals, the message has been good riddance to Maduro—but that Trump’s way of removing him maybe wasn’t ideal.
French President Emmanuel Macron initially said Venezuelans could rejoice at Maduro’s fall. A spokeswoman later said the president didn’t support the method of military intervention. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer avoided taking a view on whether the U.S. raid on Caracas violated international law.
European leaders’ caution drew widespread criticism at home, with politicians and commentators saying the continent is failing to stand up for the rules-based international order, at the same time as it is trying to defend that order against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Europeans are afraid of Trump,” said Pascal Boniface, director of the Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, a think tank in Paris. “I think this fear will fuel the aggressive Donald Trump more than it will calm him down.”
Russia’s war on Ukraine and its broader assault on Europe’s post-Cold War order are the main reasons for the continent’s reluctance to criticize Trump, many officials and analysts say.
Europe’s democracies are reviving their military spending after years of neglect, but still aren’t capable of containing an expansionist Russia without U.S. military might.
But Trump’s first year back in power has already led to a crisis of trust in the trans-Atlantic alliance, leading critics in Europe to wonder why governments are still desperate to avoid angering him.
The White House’s proposals to end the war in Ukraine, widely seen as favoring Russia, were followed by the publication of a new U.S. National Security Strategy that defines Europe’s immigration policies—but not Russian revanchism—as a problem for U.S. security.
In contrast with their reticence on Venezuela, European governments saw little choice but to speak out on Greenland.
Trump has framed his desire to control Greenland as a matter of national defense. “We need Greenland from a national security situation. It’s so strategic,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday.
The Danish military takes us inside its Arctic operation as it sets out to prove to the U.S. and Russia that it is capable of defending Greenland. Photo: Eve Hartley/ Wall Street Journal
European alarm has grown further as other administration officials echo Trump’s rhetoric. Top White House aide Stephen Miller questioned Denmark’s right to control Greenland in an interview with CNN on Monday, saying Greenland should “obviously” belong to the U.S. because the U.S. was the dominant power in NATO. He declined to rule out a military operation, adding that nobody would fight the U.S. military for Greenland.
Denmark has said there is no need for the U.S. to take over Greenland to protect American security. The U.S. already has a military base on the island and can work with Greenland and Denmark to expand its presence under existing treaties.
On Tuesday the leaders of France, Germany, the U.K., Italy, Poland and Spain backed Denmark’s position in a joint statement, calling for respect for territorial integrity and cooperation with the U.S. on Arctic security. Only Danes and Greenlanders can decide their own fate, the statement said.
Whether Trump moves on Greenland could depend on how the U.S. intervention in Venezuela pans out, said Nathalie Tocci, a former diplomatic adviser to the European Union and a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
If Trump succeeds in securing the obedience of Venezuela’s remaining leadership and U.S. control of its oil production, “then in that scenario the appetite for intervention can only grow, whether it’s in Greenland, Mexico or Colombia,” said Tocci.
“But if the U.S. gets bogged down in a Latin American mess, then the appetite and capacity to intervene in other parts of the world will diminish,” she said.
Write to Marcus Walker at Marcus.Walker@wsj.com and Matthew Dalton at Matthew.Dalton@wsj.com