Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen just said the quiet part loud: If the United States takes Greenland by force, NATO is dead.
“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2 on Monday. “That is, including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War.”
WHAT’S GOING ON: President Trump is not letting up on his obsession with Greenland.
Days after the stunning military raid that snatched Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, Trump told reporters “let’s talk about Greenland in 20 days”—a statement that sent chills through Copenhagen and Nuuk alike.
He’s repeatedly refused to rule out military force to seize the mineral-rich Arctic territory, which is a semiautonomous part of Denmark and therefore protected under the NATO alliance.
Trump also mocked Denmark’s defense capabilities, claiming the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to Greenland’s security.
“Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place,” he said. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
BUT BUT BUT: According to Ulrik Pram Gad, a global security expert from the Danish Institute for International Studies, “there are indeed Russian and Chinese ships in the Arctic, but these vessels are too far away to see from Greenland with or without binoculars.”
Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen pushed back hard at a press conference Monday. “We are not in a situation where we think that there might be a takeover of the country overnight,” he said, urging his constituents to stay calm. “The situation is not such that the United States can simply conquer Greenland.”
OF COURSE: Trump’s allies are already celebrating. Katie Miller—wife of influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller—posted an illustrated map of Greenland in Stars and Stripes colors with a single caption: “SOON.”
Denmark’s ambassador to Washington responded by demanding “full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark.”
THE DETAILS: The U.S. already operates the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland under a 1951 defense agreement.
Denmark has been a loyal NATO partner—buying American F-35 jets and approving legislation just last year to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil. Critics at the time said the move ceded too much sovereignty. Now those warnings look prescient.
WHY IT MATTERS: This isn’t just diplomatic sparring. Frederiksen is explicitly warning that a U.S. attack on Greenland would shatter the 80-year-old security architecture that has kept the peace in Europe and the North Atlantic.
NATO’s Article 5—the collective defense clause that says an attack on one is an attack on all—would become meaningless if the alliance’s largest member starts invading its own allies.
The Venezuela operation proved Trump is willing to use military force to get what he wants. Denmark and Greenland have every reason to take him at his word.