Trump threatens to pull US forces from Europe unless Denmark yields on Greenland

President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron hold a joint press conference, Monday, February 24, 2025, in the East Room of the White House. (Official Photo by Molly Riley)

President Donald Trump arrived at the NATO summit in Ankara on Tuesday and immediately issued a dramatic ultimatum: Unless Denmark becomes more flexible regarding its control of Greenland, the United States will consider withdrawing substantial forces from Europe.

The summit follows a blockbuster report in the Wall Street Journal detailing Europe's reaction to last year's Greenland crisis, underscoring the seriousness with which European and Canadian leaders took Trump's threats to seize the island.

The Context: Trump and Greenland

The President's outburst comes as his administration faces a series of foreign policy setbacks:

• Trump made his comments about Greenland nearly simultaneously with the latest breakdown of the U.S.-Iran cease-fire. The amateurishly negotiated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Iran left numerous issues unclear, straining the agreement to its breaking point.
• Earthquakes in Venezuela have exposed the weakness of the ruling clique that received Trump's blessing after his seizure of President Nicolás Maduro.
• Trump's much-vaunted summit with President Xi Jinping failed to secure any significant trade concessions, even as the Supreme Court gutted Trump's ability to levy tariffs globally.
• The truce Trump helped negotiate in Gaza has stalled, with few partners displaying interest in fulfilling their commitments.
• The Russia-Ukraine War continues unabated, with the United States playing an increasingly trivial role in its resolution.

It is thus likely that some of Trump's statements stem from a sense of weakness and frustration. Traditionally, second-term presidents have focused on foreign policy, and while Trump has left a mark, few of his interventions have played out as expected. A possible Democratic victory in the fall midterms would further constrain Trump on both the international and domestic fronts.

A return to the question of Greenland and a renewed confrontation with Denmark at least restores to the President some sense of efficacy, even if it does not constitute coherent policymaking.

The Impact

This hardly means that Trump's threats are idle. Trump has long maintained a hostility toward NATO that runs counter to the mainstream GOP and even to his inner circle. Reports from earlier this week indicated that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was planning to announce substantial U.S. troop withdrawals from Europe before being stymied by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Moreover, the President has expressed bitterness toward European NATO members for failing to intervene on the U.S.'s behalf in the Strait of Hormuz, going so far as to promise an embargo against Spain.

Thus, a withdrawal would align with how parts of the administration think about the trans-Atlantic relationship.

Perhaps more importantly, the Wall Street Journal's reporting indicates little, if any, reason to think that Europe will be flexible on the Greenland question. If Trump wants a confrontation, he is likely to get one.

A de facto U.S. abandonment of NATO would, without question, be bad for Europe, especially given the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. However, Europeans have been forced to prepare for this possibility. Jump-starting the European defense industrial base after years of neglect is a monumental task, but NATO's European members (along with Canada) are at least beginning to make the difficult decisions necessary to proceed. It certainly helps that Ukraine's relative success over the last six months has allayed the most immediate concerns over Moscow's threat to the continent.

Greenland: Destined to Join the United States? Hardly

The failure of the U.S. campaign against Iran has left the Trump administration with precious few foreign policy achievements, as Trump has failed even in his efforts to escape the consequences of his strategic errors.

This is perhaps the lesson Europeans should take: Trump is acting aggressively out of weakness and frustration. His position is determined by a lack of leverage, not strength.