It’s a strange twist of history that the barren Danish territory of Greenland, a “big, beautiful piece of ice” in the words of President Donald Trump, marked an inflection point in Trump’s foreign policy.
Trump’s threat to seize the island militarily in January, days after his lightning strike on Venezuela, cracked the transatlantic alliance. After that, most European leaders stopped trying to flatter and appease him. They mobilized forces and started drawing red lines. To Trump’s dismay, they refused to back him militarily against Iran, and they steadfastly supported Ukraine despite Trump’s tilt toward Russia.
Behind the scenes, diplomats are now trying to repair the Greenland rupture. U.S. and Danish officials have met for at least five rounds of quiet talks to work out a compromise that would expand America’s military presence on the island without compromising Danish sovereignty and local self-government. Gen. Gregory Guillot, who leads U.S. Northern Command, has already designated three sites for future American military bases, after discussions with Denmark.
“We agree on the themes. We understand each other’s red lines,” explained one official knowledgeable about the talks. The two sides appear close enough that a deal is possible in the months ahead.
Trump hates to back down. But taking Greenland by force, against European armed resistance, appears to be a bridge too far. The question is whether he can find an exit ramp soon, at a moment when his other foreign policy problems are compounding.
Let’s roll back the tape to understand the evolution of Trump’s “ludicrous, deadly serious plan to take over Greenland,” as the New Yorker described it in a careful reconstruction published in June. The evidence shows that far from a whim, this is a project Trump has been plotting since his first term. The surprise, in retrospect, is that it took so long for Denmark and Europe to take it seriously.
Trump began discussing Greenland in late 2018 with his national security adviser John Bolton, after his friend Ronald Lauder proposed that he buy the island, according to the New Yorker. Bolton then assigned his deputy, Fiona Hill, to prepare a memo that would enhance the U.S. military presence on the island without a purchase. The project “was all done in a slightly clandestine, cloak-and-dagger way,” Hill told the magazine’s reporter, Ben Taub.
Trump’s designs on Greenland surfaced publicly in August 2019, when the Wall Street Journal reported he was considering a buyout after learning that Denmark was having trouble financing the island’s needs. “What do you guys think about that?” Trump reportedly asked at a roundtable. “Do you think it would work?” Bolton wrote in his 2020 memoir that Trump was “off on the subject of Greenland” during an August 2019 meeting.
Greenland’s self-governing authority posted a tart dismissal the day the Journal article appeared. “We’re open for business, not for sale,” the Greenland Foreign Ministry said on what was then Twitter. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the idea “absurd.”
Frederiksen’s put-down was like waving a red flag at a bull. Trump called her comment “nasty” and canceled a trip to Denmark planned for the next month. “All she had to do is say ‘no, we wouldn’t be interested,’ but [they] can’t treat the United States of America the way they treated us under President Obama,” Trump told reporters.
Trump now had a grudge, and the island was in play, in his mind at least. A classified “Greenland Policy Coordination Committee” began meeting at the National Security Council, and some of its members quietly traveled to Greenland to meet pro-American residents of the island, according to the New Yorker. The U.S. also reopened a consulate in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital.
Public discussion of Greenland faded after Trump’s defeat in 2020, but as he headed into his second term, it remained a hot issue for his MAGA base. Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk traveled to the island in January 2025 with Donald Trump Jr. aboard the Trump family jet. “It is the return of Manifest Destiny,” said Kirk. “We’re gonna do whatever it takes to have Greenland be part of the United States of America.”
Trump doubled down in his March 2025 State of the Union address. He invited Greenlanders to join the United States voluntarily, but he warned: “I think we’re going to get it — one way or the other, we’re going to get it.” He now saw Greenland as an essential base in the contest with Russia and China for the Arctic, and for his planned Golden Dome missile shield.
What happened over the next year resembled a game of chicken, and Trump swerved away from a collision only at the last moment.
State Department officials had been meeting quietly with Danish diplomats to explore a compromise that would allow the U.S. military to increase its presence on the island. But in late December, Trump appointed Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) as a special envoy, posting that “Jeff understands how essential Greenland is to our National Security.” That drew a sharp response from Denmark and Greenland. “You cannot annex another country … Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders and the U.S. shall not take over Greenland,” they said in a joint statement.
Trump’s Greenland campaign went into overdrive after the Jan. 3 raid that snatched Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The following day, former White House aide Katie Miller, the wife of deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, posted a map of Greenland colored with the stars and stripes of the American flag, and the word “soon.” Trump told reporters that day on Air Force One: “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. And the European Union needs us to have it, and they know that.”
Was Trump prepared to use military force? Reporters pushed White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and she issued a statement Jan. 6 to ABC News that “of course, utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.” She reiterated the next day that “All options are always on the table.”
This seemed to be a direct military threat. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had scheduled a meeting in early January with Danish officials to defuse the confrontation. Then, Vice President JD Vance proposed joining the meeting and hosting it at the White House. The session confirmed European fears that the danger was real, and they needed to take countermeasures.
And so, incredibly, European countries began what military strategists call “preparation of the battlefield” for a war with the United States over Greenland. On Jan. 15, Denmark, Britain, Germany, Sweden, France, Norway, the Netherlands and Finland sent troops to the island in a joint military exercise they called “Operation Arctic Endurance.” Danish troops even brought explosives to blow up airport runways, and blood supplies to treat wounded soldiers, according to the Danish broadcaster, DR.
Trump then turned up the pressure even further. In a Jan. 17 post, he said that “it is time for Denmark to give back — World Peace is at stake!” He threatened that on Feb. 1 a 10 percent tariff would go into effect on the eight countries that sent troops, rising to 25 percent June 1, until “a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.” Financial markets tumbled, as investors feared Trump might not be bluffing.
Having climbed the ladder of escalation to the point of military mobilization, Trump finally decided to climb down. The retreat came with a Trumpian roar at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Jan. 21. “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won’t do that … I won’t use force.”
Trump’s retreat from the brink was facilitated by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. After their meeting late on Jan. 21, Trump said he had reached “the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland” and was withdrawing the new tariffs.
U.S. and Danish diplomats have been hammering out the details of this “framework” ever since. Gen. Guillot told Congress in March that he had “very productive” discussions with Denmark and Greenland. He said his planned three bases will include space systems for missile defense, facilities for U.S. fighter jets and tankers, and ports for Special Operations forces.
Has the Greenland war been averted? Probably, but with Trump it’s never over until it’s over — and even then it’s not over.
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