Panicking over Greenland plays into Trump’s hands – it’s time for cool heads and stalling diplomacy | Simon Jenkins

European countries sending troops to the island is only raising the temperature and generating fear – exactly what the US president wants

Is Greenland Donald Trump’s 25th-amendment moment? Last time around, this was when the Washington “grownups” debated his capacity to be president, notably in the final fortnight of his presidency, after the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Under the constitution, a president can be replaced should the vice-president and a cabinet majority decide their leader is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”. The trouble today is that there are no grownups.

The US president’s designs on Greenland are clearly mad. He claims Russia and China are scheming to seize the island and that Denmark should be forced urgently to transfer its sovereignty. Denmark had long allowed the US extended military access to Greenland, but Trump seems to want to own it. None of his staff has been able to say why.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist and the author of A Short History of America: From Tea Party to Trump