Trump’s Greenland threats push U.S. allies to a tipping point

WASHINGTON— An unrestrained US president has sided with Russia in a war of conquest in Europe, forced Venezuela’s dictator out of his bed to seize control of the country’s oil, threatened military strikes against America’s closest neighbors and sent escalating tariffs to his friends.

Donald Trump got away with everything; But threats to annex Greenland could be a tipping point in the global order that has benefited the United States for more than 75 years, risking the demise of the Western alliance in its current form.

Canada’s prime minister said Tuesday that the Trump administration’s crude behavior signals a “break” in the international system, not just a shift away from a world in which the United States can be relied upon as a force for good. American cardinals in the Catholic Church warned over the weekend that US foreign policy was “morally adrift.” The French president said Europe now represents a rare haven where predictability, loyalty and the rule of law still overshadow the “brutality” of “tyrants”.

Trump’s effort to convince his allies of his will on Greenland through a new tariff increase Panic in US markets. The Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 900 points, the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 2% and the NASDAQ fell more than 500 points. US 30-year Treasury bond yields rose. The gold price has reached an all-time high.

“The Transatlantic alliance is over,” Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest confidant, said on social media.

Trump was due to depart for Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday night for a summit of foreign leaders suddenly focused on the fate of Greenland, the world’s largest island, which has been under Danish rule since the 18th century.

Senior government officials in Denmark and Greenland warned that a US attempt to annex the region by force would amount to an act of war and mark the end of the NATO alliance; These comments were echoed by other leaders in Europe. But Trump has stepped up his threats in recent days, warning over the holiday weekend that “there can be no turning back” on his ambitions.

At a White House press conference on Tuesday, Trump acknowledged the existential risk to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that an attempt to seize Danish territory poses.

Whether the Greenland effort could tear the alliance apart is a “very interesting” question, Trump told a reporter, adding: “I think it’s going to be a very good thing for everybody.”

“I think we’ll figure something out,” he added. “NATO will be very happy, we will be very happy too.”

Trump denied that the Greenlanders did not want to be part of the United States.

“They’re going to be very excited when I talk to them,” Trump said.

Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, warned the islanders at a press conference early Tuesday to be prepared for the unexpected possibility of a US invasion. “A military conflict cannot be ruled out,” he said.

Any acquisition of U.S. territory, either by treaty or by force, must be approved by Congress, where bipartisan suspicions began to grow stronger this week.

Some leading Republican lawmakers criticized Trump’s threats to seize the island and punish European countries defending Denmark’s Arctic region. But so far, no concrete steps have been taken to preemptively block the president’s actions.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) joined Democrats in their chambers to introduce legislation that would block Trump from using Defense Department funds to seize territory from a NATO country or territory, such as Greenland. But as of Tuesday, no other GOP lawmakers had joined their cause.

In an interview with Omaha World-Herald last weekBacon went so far as to say that if Trump followed through on his threat to buy Greenland, it would be “the end of his presidency.”

“And [Trump] He needs to know: The starting point is to realize that Republicans will not tolerate this and will have to step back,” Bacon told the Nebraska newspaper. “He hates being told no, but I think Republicans should be determined in this situation.”

While Republican lawmakers have criticized Trump’s tactics in recent days, they have fallen short of taking congressional action to stop Trump’s alleged plans in Greenland.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R.N.C.) said imposing tariffs on allies for sending troops to Greenland is “bad for America, bad for American businesses, and bad for America’s allies”; but he said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday that he “will not be dismissed” on the issue.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last week that an attempt to seize the Arctic region would “shatter the confidence of allies” and be “catastrophic” for Trump’s legacy.

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) speech to the British Parliament on Tuesday showed just how fine a line Republicans are treading when it comes to appeasing Trump and his allies abroad, who he says are there to help “calm the waters” between the United States and Europe.

“As friends, we have always managed to resolve our differences calmly,” Johnson said. “We’ll continue to do that. I can assure you this morning that that’s still the case.”

In his speech at the Davos economic forum, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney described Trump’s proposal for Greenland as a striking example of the collapse of the global order in real time.

“We knew that the story of the international rules-based order was partly false, that the most powerful would exempt themselves when it was convenient, that trade rules were applied asymmetrically,” Carney said. “This fiction was useful. American hegemony in particular helped ensure public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, and collective security.

“We know the old order will not return,” Carney added. “We shouldn’t mourn. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”