Europe spent much of 2025 scrambling to bolster its defenses against Russia — but just a week into the new year, it’s being forced to rethink security once again amid President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland.
Trump has been ramping up calls for Greenland — a semi-autonomous Danish territory — to be brought under Washington’s control. This week, the White House said Trump was considering various options to make it happen, including military action.
Greenland, the world’s largest island, is rich in untapped mineral resources. Although geographically positioned on the North American continent, it is politically part of Europe.
Acquiring the island would be no mean feat. Aside from political obstacles both at home and abroad, any attempt to take the territory by force would pit the U.S. against its NATO allies.
In an interview with CNN earlier this week, top Trump aide Stephen Miller suggested no European country would be prepared to put up a fight to protect Greenland. Although not explicitly ruling out the possibility of U.S. military action in Greenland, he argued that “there’s no need to even think or talk about this in the context of a military operation [because] nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” pointing to the island’s small population.
