Donald Trump’s repeated threats to seize control of Greenland, ‘whether they like it or not’, has a fair amount of the world on edge.
The ‘like’ might see the US annexe the sparsely populated island by writing a cheque, while the ‘not’ could be by military force.
Either way, if Trump could claim the semiautonomous Danish territory as his own, could US invasions be on the cards for other countries?
Metro asked Ian Bond, the deputy director of a London-based European Union think-tank, whether the UK has anything to worry about.
Bond, of the Centre for European Reform, said: ‘It’s almost inconceivable that even a president as erratic as Trump would attack the UK.
‘Not least since he has golf courses here and also seems to have an abiding admiration for the Royal Family.’
Trump, a former New York real estate giant, owns 17 golf courses across the UK.
He hosted Keir Starmer at two of his golf resorts in Scotland last July to discuss trade, Ukraine and Gaza with the prime minister.
The president has long shown his love for the British royals, often recounting to reporters his mother watching the crowning of Queen Elizabeth when he was six.
He even referred to Prince William as his ‘friend’ during his second state visit.
‘Trump invading Greenland would set off the collapse of NATO’
‘But that doesn’t mean that we are safe,’ Bond warned.
For one, Trump’s ‘constant flirtation with Vladimir Putin’, having hosted the Russian president last year, is ‘putting European security at risk’, he said.
Trump’s quest for Greenland, meanwhile, is putting the future of NATO on the line.
Bond said: ‘If Trump invades Greenland, setting off the collapse of NATO, the UK would lose its most important alliance and the mutual defence guarantee that goes with it.’
NATO is a trans-Atlantic security alliance established in 1949, now counting the US, UK and Greenland as members.
Russia’s war against Ukraine has revitalised the war-fighting alliance, with members sending tens of millions of pounds to Kyiv.
Trump, however, has never been shy about his opinion of NATO, making repeated threats to drag the US out of it.
The Republican leader sought to stop sending American weapons to Ukraine earlier this year, only to U-turn after NATO proposed paying for military aid instead of the US donating it.
Only yesterday, Trump wrote that NATO ‘would not be an effective force or deterrent — Not even close!’ without the US.
‘They know that, and so do I. NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES. Anything less than that is unacceptable.’
Trump even shrugged off one of NATO’s central ideas last week, that to attack one member is to attack them all.
Only if the US seized Greenland would ‘we defend it’, Trump told reporters.
Trump’s campaign for Greenland has pitted him against NATO allies, who have been crystal clear that they will support Denmark and Greenland.
The White House says the island is alluring for its position in the Arctic Circle and wealth of natural resources. If the US does not claim it, Washington officials say, China or Russia will.
Trump pitting his country, which has the most powerful military in the world, against NATO is something the world hasn’t seen, Bond says.
‘For the first time since the end of World War Two, European leaders have to consider the likelihood that if they were attacked, the US would not come to their aid,’ he says.
‘Almost all of them, including the UK, are seriously under-prepared for that.’
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