By Anietie Anii-Bassey
After more than a year of cautious maneuvering around President Donald Trump’s second-term foreign policy style, European leaders are showing signs of a sharper, more coordinated resistance to what they view as his growing disregard for international norms and his threats toward allied territory.
The turning point came with Trump’s renewed insistence that the United States should take control of Greenland, the vast, resource-rich Arctic territory that is a semiautonomous part of Denmark and a fellow member of the NATO alliance.
His remarks, paired with warnings that countries opposing him would face economic retaliation, prompted unusually blunt responses from European capitals and marked a departure from the careful, conciliatory tone that had dominated transatlantic diplomacy since his return to the White House.
“No more pressure. No more hints. No more fantasies about annexation,” Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said in a statement after Trump reiterated the idea earlier this month.
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government would not waver in backing Greenland’s sovereignty, while leaders across the continent echoed variations of the same message: Europe would not accept threats from an ally. Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre captured the mood succinctly, saying, “Threats have no place among allies.”
The sharp rhetoric surfaced publicly during last week’s gathering of political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, where Trump told an audience that the United States wanted Greenland for what he described as global security reasons and warned that resistance would have consequences.
“You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative,” Trump said. “Or you can say no, and we will remember.”
Behind the scenes, European officials say the collective response reflected months of reassessment about how to deal with a U.S. president known for transactional diplomacy and an aversion to being contradicted.
With American congressional elections looming in November, a volatile stock market and slipping approval ratings at home, European leaders also sensed that Trump’s leverage abroad might not be as absolute as it appeared.
Trump has brushed aside traditional diplomatic frameworks in recent interviews, saying he sees little need for international law in shaping U.S. decisions.
That stance has unnerved governments accustomed to consensus-driven negotiations and treaty-based alliances, particularly when he floated not only the Greenland takeover but, at various points, the possibility of U.S. control over Panama or even Canada.
“In his first term, Europe didn’t know what to expect and tried to deal with him using the old rules of diplomacy,” said Mark Shanahan, an associate professor of political engagement at the University of Surrey.
“They hoped that if they kept talking to him in measured terms, he would change his behavior. That’s very hard when you’re dealing with a leader who rejects the norms everyone else is operating under.”
European unity had been elusive in the early months of Trump’s return to office, with capitals often reacting individually to U.S. pressure.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen acknowledged that her government initially found itself on the defensive, particularly after Vice President JD Vance publicly questioned Denmark’s reliability as an ally last year.
“We are not a bad ally,” Frederiksen said at the time.
Since then, officials say, coordination has improved. NATO members convened in the Netherlands five months after Trump’s inauguration and agreed to boost defense spending, a move widely credited to U.S. pressure.
Alliance Secretary-General Mark Rutte even joked about Trump’s role in defusing a Middle East crisis, likening him to a stern parent stepping into a playground dispute.
But the Greenland episode proved harder to finesse. Denmark’s government warned that any attempt to seize the territory would fracture NATO itself, and a series of statements from European leaders followed, each rejecting the notion that sovereignty could be negotiated.
Trump answered with a new round of threats. Writing from Florida, he said he would impose a 10 percent tariff within weeks on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and Finland unless talks advanced toward what he called the “complete and total purchase of Greenland.” The levy, he added, would rise to 25 percent by early summer if no agreement emerged.
The response from Europe grew even firmer. Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, reframed the dispute as part of a broader question about whether democracies should band together against coercion by major powers.
Without naming the United States, he argued that allies must resist “exploitation” and accept that a serious rupture — not merely a policy disagreement — had opened within the transatlantic relationship.
Political scientists say that calculation reflects both frustration and pragmatism. Duncan Snidal, a professor emeritus at Oxford University and the University of Chicago, noted that Trump’s confrontational posture abroad coincides with legal challenges at home, protests over immigration enforcement and a pending Supreme Court decision on his tariff policies.
“He was in a fairly weak position domestically,” Snidal said, adding that Europe appeared to recognize the moment as one in which unified resistance might carry more weight.
Still, the confrontation showed signs of softening as the Davos meeting drew to a close. Trump walked back earlier comments about using force to secure Greenland and later spoke of a possible “framework” for a deal that would make the threatened tariffs unnecessary.
In an interview with Fox Business, he said the United States would gain “total access to Greenland,” though he did not specify what that meant.
Frederiksen quickly reiterated Denmark’s stance.
“We cannot negotiate on our sovereignty,” she said.
For European leaders, the message was intended to be unmistakable: the era of careful flattery and quiet accommodation may be giving way to a more assertive defense of red lines — even when that means telling Washington no.
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