National Review Online
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
The unnecessary crisis over Greenland has been made
unnecessarily worse by President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on countries
that were not “going along” with his plans for the island. Exports to the U.S.
from eight NATO allies (with more to be added to the list?) were to be hit with
an extra 10 percent tariff from February 1, rising to 25 percent on June 1 and
staying at that level until, the president wrote, “such time as a Deal is
reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.” Needless to say,
those who end up paying for these tariffs will, for the most part, be American.
We continue to believe that Donald Trump has been right
to stress the strategic importance of Greenland. Floating the idea of something
much more ambitious — outright purchase — rather than simply taking advantage
of our existing favorable treaty arrangements governing the island was
imaginative, Trumpian, and not unprecedented. However, there is a difference
between floating an idea and forcing one through. We should only buy Greenland
if the final decision of whether to accept our offer is made via referendum by
the Greenlanders themselves. The antics of the last few months have done a
great deal to ensure this will not happen any time soon, let alone within
Trump’s tariff timetable.
One alternative, an American takeover of Greenland by
force, not only would be antithetical to the U.S. view of intentional
legitimacy going back more than 100 years but would have catastrophic
consequences. It is an idea that should be rejected out of hand. Annexation at
gunpoint would risk shattering NATO entirely or leaving it a shadow of its
former self. It would destroy the trust in the U.S. that underpins both the
alliance and the credibility of American deterrence. To gain an island that we
already have considerable sway over at the cost of “losing” Europe looks like a
bad trade, militarily, economically, and geopolitically.
The damage that this episode is causing has been
exacerbated by the wording of a bizarre text sent by the president to Norway’s
prime minister in which, nonsensically, Trump cast doubts over Danish
sovereignty in Greenland (something accepted by the U.S. for over a century)
and then linked his increasingly belligerent attitude to his failure to win a
Nobel Peace Prize. The prize is awarded by a committee of five chosen by
Norway’s parliament, not its government. More importantly, Norway, like all but
one of the countries being threatened with higher tariffs, has no control over
Greenland. That is a matter for Denmark and Greenland alone. For the U.S. to
bully its allies to bully another ally is not a good look. Moreover, both the
contents and the tone of the text have only reinforced the European view of the
president as an erratic and unreliable counterparty. That is no basis for
coming to a deal.
The Atlantic Alliance that has served this country for so
long and so well is in a fragile state. What has been said cannot be unsaid,
and some of the damage caused by this episode will take a very long time to put
right, if ever. If the U.S. wishes to proceed down the path to a closer
relationship with Greenland, it should do so incrementally, patiently, and with
the acceptance that its final destination could well fall short of the island’s
purchase. Instead, our ambition should be to rebuild enough trust to ensure
that we can take advantage of, and possibly improve on, the existing defense
arrangements with Denmark and Greenland. At the same time, we should
investigate what arrangements can be made to secure access to Greenland’s
mineral resources. That too will take time, trust, and a fair deal. If it
succeeds, the money it brings to Greenland should bring the island much closer
to the U.S. and, one day perhaps, a relationship akin to the free association
we have with Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands.
But before anything can happen, the immediate crisis needs to be defused. The president needs to calm down; the Europeans, understandably irate, ought to hold off hitting back with their own higher tariffs; and the White House should enter into the talks over Greenland that are on offer, press pause on its tariff plans, and work toward an agreement that will improve our security while leaving a door open to more in due time.
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