What did Donald Trump say to Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on the phone Wednesday? I don’t know the exact words he used, but I’ve seen their impact firsthand. I arrived in Copenhagen the day after the call—the subject, of course, was the future of Greenland, which Denmark owns and which Trump wants—and found that my appointments with Danish politicians were suddenly being cancelled. Danger. During Frederiksen's emergency meeting with business leaders, the foreign minister's emergency meeting with party leaders, and an additional emergency meeting of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, everything suddenly became completely unstable.
Result: In the morning, I found myself standing on the Knipel Bridge between the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish Parliament, phone in hand, waiting to be told which direction to go. It was not a warm January in Denmark; I went to the parliament and waited there. The meeting was canceled anyway. After that, no one wanted to say anything on the record. So those Americans who voted for Trump because of high egg prices are now causing a political crisis in Scandinavia.
In private discussions, the adjective most commonly used to describe Trump's phone call was rough. The most commonly used verb is threaten. The most commonly expressed reaction was confusion. Trump made it clear to Frederiksen that he was serious about Greenland: Apparently, he considered it a real estate deal. But Greenland is not beachfront property. The world's largest island is an autonomous territory of Denmark, inhabited by Danish citizens, voting in Danish elections and having representation in the Danish Parliament. Denmark also has politics, the Danish Prime Minister cannot sell Greenland, just like the US President cannot sell Florida.
At the same time, Denmark is also a country where multinational companies - among them Lego, shipping giant Maersk and Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk - conduct billions of dollars worth of trade with the United States, and where there is also significant American investment. . They consider these to be positive aspects of Denmark's relationship with the United States. Denmark and the United States are also founding members of NATO, and Danish leaders could be forgiven for thinking this is important to Washington as well. Instead, these links turned out to be a vulnerability. On Thursday afternoon, Frederiksen appeared, accompanied by the foreign and defense ministers, to make a statement. "The United States has said that unfortunately, we may have less economic cooperation than we do today," she said.
Still, the most difficult aspect of the crisis is not the need to prepare for unspecified economic threats from close allies, but the need to deal with a sudden, almost Kafkaesque sense of absurdity. In fact, Trump's request is illogical. Anything the United States could theoretically want to do in Greenland is now possible. Denmark has never prevented the U.S. military from establishing bases in Greenland, searching for minerals, garrisoning troops, or patrolling nearby waters. In the past, the Danes have even gotten Americans to ignore Danish policy in Greenland. Over lunch, a former Danish diplomat told me a Cold War story that occurred shortly after Denmark officially declared itself a non-nuclear state. Nonetheless, in 1957, the US ambassador made a request to the then Danish Prime Minister HC Hansen. The United States is interested in storing some nuclear weapons at U.S. bases in Greenland. Denmark would like to be notified?
Hansen responded with a cryptic note, which he described as "informal, personal and highly confidential, limited to one copy each to Denmark and the United States," according to diplomatic records. In the note, which was not shared with the Danish parliament or the Danish media and was actually not made public until the 1990s, Hansen said that since the U.S. ambassador did not mention specific plans or make specific demands, "I would like to think that your remarks are not would elicit any comment from my side." In other words, If you don't tell us you keep nuclear weapons in Greenland, then we don't have to object.
The Danes were loyal allies of the United States then and remain so now. During the Cold War, they were central to NATO planning. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they reformed their military and formed an expeditionary force specifically to serve their American allies. After 9/11, when the mutual defense clause of the NATO treaty was first activated - on behalf of the United States - Denmark sent troops to Afghanistan, where 43 Danish soldiers died. In proportion to its population, about 5 million, that's a higher death rate than the United States. The Danes have also sent troops to Iraq and joined NATO forces in the Balkans. They see themselves as part of the web of relationships that has made America’s power and influence so unique over the past half-century. Because U.S. alliances are based on shared values and not just transactional interests, the degree of cooperation varies. Denmark provided assistance when the United States requested it, or volunteered when it was not requested. “So what did we do wrong?” a Danish official asked me.
Obviously, they didn't do anything wrong - but that's part of the crisis. Trump himself was unable to articulate at a press conference or apparently in a phone call why he needed to own Greenland, or how Denmark could provide American companies and soldiers with greater access to Greenland than they currently have. Regardless, many will try to rationalize what he said. The Economist Claiming the existence of “Trumpism”, a million articles seriously debated Greenland’s strategic importance. But in Copenhagen (and not just in Copenhagen), people suspect a more irrational explanation: Trump just wants to make America look bigger on the map.
This instinct—to ignore existing borders, laws, and treaties; to treat other countries as artificial nations; to destroy trade ties and destroy friendships, all because leaders want to appear powerful—is what Trump has to do with the past What imperialists have in common. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also expressed appreciation for the similarities between U.S. desire for Greenland and Russia's desire for territory in Ukraine. Lavrov suggested a possible referendum in Greenland, comparing the possibility to Russia's fake referendums held under duress in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
Of course, Trump might forget about Greenland. But he might not. No one knows. He acts as he pleases, sometimes drawing inspiration from the last people he encountered, sometimes returning to obsessions he's apparently given up on: windmills, sharks, Hannibal Lecter, and now Greenland. To Danes and almost anyone who uses rational arguments to make plans, sign treaties or formulate long-term strategies, this way of formulating policy feels arbitrary, pointless, even surreal. But now it's also permanent and there's no turning back.