Is Europe’s Tough Talk on Greenland Just Posture?

It’s the third Monday in a row (and there have been only three this year) on which we find ourselves contemplating the shifting sands of the world order. Mere contemplation is, of course, these days a luxury, especially if you find yourself in a country towards which US president Donald Trump has stretched his chipolata fingers.

It’s Greenland that currently lies sausaged between the acquisitive desires of the commander in chief and his confounded allies in Europe. But as the world’s bosses gather in the snowy Swiss Alps to carve up our fates this week, expect multiple Captain von Clap-Trapps to appear.

Sovereignty! – they’ll yell. But it won’t be the sound of music you’ll hear. Rather, the sound of muzak, as our leaders slowly tap ‘B’ for basement behind Greenland’s back.

It might be champagne final wishes and caviar fever dreams for the globe’s elites this morning, as the World Economic Forum kicks off in Davos. In contrast to last year’s Teams meet appearance, Trump is set to arrive in person, heading up the largest ever US delegation to the event, which has as its theme — I kid you not — ‘The Spirit of Dialogue’. Makes sense if, and only if, that spirit is 90% proof, bucket-brewed moonshine. 

Grovelling will likely be Trump’s top pick from the menu on arrival. And while slavish genuflecting will no doubt be on tap, he might find the boot-licking a tad less enthusiastic than usual. That’s after the president threatened to slap an additional 25% tariff on US imports from the eight European states, including the UK, that dared to cross him over his mission to claim Greenland for the US in the cause of — as he put it in a Truth Social post — “World Peace”. 

I kid you not, again.

Keir Starmer, along with some of the leaders of fellow bad-boy states Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Netherlands, will also arrive in the Swiss Alps fresh from planning a crisis summit to answer the question: how do you solve a problem like MAGA? And while it may look like Trump dragging half his senior cabinet to a ski resort is bringing a gun to a knifefight, the European set are alleged to be carrying an even heavier weapon: the ‘economic bazooka’. 

For the lonely survivors of the death-cringe brought on by the name, I’ll explain. In late 2023, the EU drew up an anti-coercion instrument that allows it to lock-off its entire market to any state seen to be using economic pressure to force it into making a particular decision. It was created — ironically enough — in those hazy days when China was the bogeyman of choice. Just two years later, and it may be used for the very first time against Uncle Sam. 

The bazooka is, to be fair, a pretty powerful weapon, threatening €93bn in tariffs for further US-trade access to the bloc’s 500 million consumers. (Of course, the UK would not be protected by its blast. But fear not, this mighty island has its own terrifying financial weapon. Sources close to the PM assure me he will not hesitate to toot HMG’s fiscal kazoo).

We all know this is a posture. None of us is 16 going on 17 anymore. Would Europe, let alone an isolated Britain, really push the big red button, and launch an enormous trade war – not to mention potential actual war – with Washington? One that would damage their own economies, and risk spiralling out of control in a dangerous game of one-upmanship? 

Meanwhile, Trump has a bazooka of his own: the complete disintegration of NATO. The security alliance – as well as all the political and economic connection that comes with it – has long been an irritant to Trump. And while Europe is preparing to go it alone militarily, the bloc is still a long way off being able to hold a candle to US might. 

Greenlanders have made it clear they do not want to swap Denmark for the US. Like many past colonised peoples, they’ll be anxious about whether their land is, once again, up for trade. With negotiations now set to take place on the Davos sidelines – and, as far as I can see, no Greenlander delegate in attendance – they may soon find it is. 

Someone, somewhere is likely already putting together a package of rights, granting the US access to what Trump really wants. The vast rare earth minerals that lie beneath Greenland’s steadily-melting ice-sheet, not to mention its gold and oil reserves, are likely just a few of his favourite things.

And investors are already rubbing their hands.