Copenhagen may be 5,200 miles from Caracas, but the sound of helicopters capturing the President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro will be deafening in the Danish capital.
longtime trump threats of Denmark's seizure of Greenland territory was widely ridiculed in Europe, even ridiculed as outlandish talk that would certainly never lead to an effective United States invasion of a NATO ally.
But Trump's willingness and ability to take over Maduro – and his proposal that Greenland and its own vast natural resources could be next—has raised fears that there may be more to these Arctic ambitions.
This caused the strongest protests against Washington's Hostile Attemptsincluding from longtime US allies in Europe.
“No more pressure. No more hints. No more fantasies of annexation,” Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post on Sunday.
“When the president of the United States talks about 'we need Greenland' and associates us with Venezuela and military intervention, it's not just wrong. It's so disrespectful,” he added. “Our country is not the object of the rhetoric of superpowers. We are the people. The Earth. And democracy. This must be respected. Especially close and loyal friends.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen added on Sunday that Trump's talk of taking Greenland “makes absolutely no sense” and that “the US has no right to annex” it.
Trump and his team have been saying for months they want to take over the huge semi-autonomous territory of Denmarkciting its strategic importance and mineral wealth. After Maduro's capture, he reinforced the idea, telling reporters aboard Air Force One late Sunday: “We need Greenland from a national security perspective, and Denmark can't do it, I'm telling you.”
He ridiculed local efforts to defend the sparsely populated island, saying “they've added another dog sled” that would be no match for the “Russian and Chinese ships” he claimed were “all over” the territory.
(This rationale is disputed by experts: Peter Viggo Jacobsen, an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defense College, told NBC News that the ships “do not exist.”)
The alarm was heightened by Katie Miller, a right-wing podcast host and wife of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who posted an image of Greenland superimposed on an American flag and the caption “COMING SOON!”
While Trump stunned the world by sending planes and personnel to capture Maduro in Caracas, intervention in Greenland may carry a greater risk of escalation.
Denmark's membership in NATO entails implied defense of Article 5 – a promise that an attack on one ally will be considered an attack on all. However, the US is by far the largest contributor to NATO and has historically been seen as the ultimate guarantor of its promise of mutual self-defense.
Germany signaled on Monday that European allies would be ready to intervene.
“As Denmark is a NATO member, Greenland will, in principle, also be subject to NATO defense,” Foreign Minister Johann Wadeful told reporters in Lithuania. “And if there are further demands for increased defensive efforts against Greenland, then we will have to discuss this within the alliance.”
