US President Donald Trump appears determined to take his " Donroe Doctrine " literally – securing American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.

On Sunday, January 4th, a day after the US military operation in Venezuela to capture and remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, Trump again threatened to annex Greenland , a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark located in the Arctic Circle.

"We need Greenland from a national security standpoint; right now it's teeming with various Russian and Chinese ships," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, referring to the geostrategic location of the inhospitable island, which occupies a vast territory—almost four times the size of France and about 25% the size of Brazil—where only 55,000 people live.

The reasons for Trump's obsession with annexing Greenland are well known. Controlling the island would give the United States an outpost in a crucial naval corridor linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Arctic.

Furthermore, Greenland possesses enormous reserves of oil and, especially, rare earth minerals – vital components for the manufacture of batteries, cell phones, electric vehicles, and other items that utilize advanced technologies. The global market for these minerals is controlled by China.

The fact that part of the island's territory is located in the Western Hemisphere is giving Trump a veneer of justification for invoking the Donroe Doctrine to annex Greenland. But it was the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, who revealed what the American president's real objective behind the threat would be: to end NATO, the military alliance between the US and Europe formed after the Second World War.

"The international community as we know it; the democratic rules of the game; NATO , the world's strongest defense alliance—all of this would collapse if one NATO country decided to attack another," Frederiksen warned.

Article 5 of NATO's founding charter considers a military offensive against a member country as an attack on the entire alliance. Since the US and Denmark are part of NATO, the cited article could not be used and the treaty would, in practice, be nullified – after all, no ally would defend Denmark from an American attack.

Alarmed by the possibility of Trump moving forward with the idea, European leaders reacted on Tuesday, January 6th, with a joint statement affirming that security in the Arctic must be achieved collectively.

"The Kingdom of Denmark – including Greenland – is part of NATO," says the statement, released by the office of the Danish Prime Minister on the social network X, signed by Frederiksen, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as well as the leaders of Italy, Spain and Poland.

“Security in the Arctic must therefore be achieved collectively, together with NATO allies, including the United States, upholding the principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders. These are universal principles and we will not fail to defend them,” the statement adds.

Harassment

Trump has been talking about annexing Greenland since his election campaign last year. "While there is a good possibility we can resolve the situation without the use of military force, I am not ruling out any option," the then-Republican candidate warned.

After being elected, but even before taking office, Trump began pressuring the Danish government and other European countries. Still in 2024, he sent his vice president, JD Vance, uninvited to Greenland to "inspect" the territory.

At the time, Trump tried to win supporters by suggesting that the US could buy the island, which was met with outrage by European leaders and the population of Greenland – a poll released early last year showed 85% rejection of the idea.

Shortly before Christmas, Trump appointed a special envoy, the Republican governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry. "It is an honor to serve you in this voluntary position to make Greenland part of the USA," said Landry, once again irritating European leaders.

The fact is that there has always been a fascination within Trump's ultraconservative circle regarding Greenland. Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, for example, wants to establish "networked states" using cryptographic technology in underdeveloped territories. He invested in Praxis, a startup that aims precisely at this and has already explored Greenland.

Trump's ambassador to Denmark, Ken Howery, co-founded PayPal with Thiel and Elon Musk. Besides appealing to libertarians, the annexation of Greenland would be well-received by MAGA ideologues – a hardline political movement on the Republican right – as it would dismantle NATO in one fell swoop.

The successful American military operation in Venezuela has given impetus to bringing Greenland back to the White House agenda – military resistance from Denmark, whose armed forces have a total strength of 9,000 men, would be unlikely.

Stephen Miller, one of Trump's top advisors, stated that Greenland "by right" belongs to the United States, suggesting that the American government could seize the territory if it wanted to.

“The real question is: by what right does Denmark claim control over Greenland? What is the basis of its territorial claim? What is the justification for considering Greenland a colony of Denmark?” Miller said, making no attempt to hide his cynicism.

Denmark has controlled Greenland for approximately 300 years, and in 1916, the United States formally recognized Danish interests in Greenland in exchange for the Danish West Indies, which became the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Greenland gained autonomy in 1979, giving the population control over most of its internal affairs. Since 2009, Greenlanders have had the right to hold a referendum on independence.

But Denmark still controls foreign policy, defense, and other aspects of the island's governance, which is largely economically dependent on the Danish government, from whom it receives a huge annual subsidy that funds schools, cheap gas, and social services.

Negotiations

The governments of Denmark and Greenland have been trying for months to negotiate a solution satisfactory to the White House with the Trump administration. They offered the US the option of increasing its military presence in Greenland, where it already maintains a base and where troops have been deployed for a long time, but the proposal was rejected.

A State Department source quoted by Politico says it wouldn't be difficult for Trump to obtain concessions from the Danish government without necessarily annexing Greenland.

“The problem is that Trump has become convinced that the 'Donroe Doctrine' is his,” the source told Politico . “He’s very focused on it right now. And it’s difficult to reach an agreement with the Danes when Trump thinks he can simply take control.”

It's not just Europeans who are outraged by Trump's threats. "We can all agree that Maduro was a bad person, but this is a completely different level of insanity—it has no basis in reality," said Rufus Gifford, who was the U.S. ambassador to Denmark during President Barack Obama's administration.

According to him, Trump's advisors "have enormous egos" and don't care about the rule of law, alliances, history, treaties, and trust — "fundamental concepts that made the United States what it is."

“All members of Congress should be vehemently protesting this; and if they do not, they are complicit in what could be the ruin of the West as we know it,” Gifford warned.