Donald Trump spent his Sunday night doing what 79-year-olds do best: screaming into the void of social media about seizing foreign territory.
“Now it is time, and it will be done!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social, continuing his bizarre obsession with taking over Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark that—shockingly—does not want to be American.
WHAT’S GOING ON: Trump’s late-night rant accused NATO of telling Denmark for “20 years” to deal with the “Russian threat” near Greenland, claiming Denmark failed and now America must step in. This follows a Saturday tirade where he threatened 10 percent tariffs on eight European nations—Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland—starting February 1, escalating to 25 percent by June. Their crime? Opposing his territorial ambitions.
“This is a very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet,” Trump wrote, apparently without irony, about his own plan to destabilize transatlantic relations over an island he cannot legally purchase.
BUT BUT BUT: European leaders are not having it. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen delivered a blunt response: “We want to cooperate and we are not the ones seeking conflict. Europe will not be blackmailed.”
NATO members from all eight targeted countries released a joint statement expressing “full solidarity” with Denmark and Greenland, warning Trump was instigating a “dangerous downward spiral.” They affirmed their commitment to “sovereignty and territorial integrity”—diplomatic speak for “you cannot just take other people’s land.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, after consulting NATO allies, reinforced that “applying tariffs on allies for pursuing the collective security of NATO allies is wrong.”
OF COURSE: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refused to rule out military action against a NATO ally. On Meet the Press, he claimed “Greenland can only be defended if it is part of the US.” He insisted Europeans would eventually “understand that this is best for Greenland, best for Europe and best for the United States”—the kind of reasoning typically reserved for explaining why you’re taking someone’s lunch money for their own good.
WHY IT MATTERS: The President of the United States is publicly threatening tariffs and potentially military force against allied nations because they won’t let him annex their territory. This isn’t normal diplomacy. This isn’t even abnormal diplomacy. This is a 79-year-old man with nuclear codes posting at 1 AM about seizing an autonomous Arctic territory while NATO scrambles to prevent what they’re calling a “dangerous downward spiral.”
The fact that multiple European democracies had to issue a joint statement reminding America that you can’t just take other countries’ land tells you everything about where we are. Trump’s Greenland fixation has gone from weird campaign trail fantasy to active international crisis, and his own administration won’t rule out using the military to make it happen.