Trump’s Greenland logic rattles Europe, Nato

Donald Trump's rationale for decapitating Venezuela's government is fuelling concerns among European officials that they could soon face an existential dilemma over Greenland.

- SARA SJOLIN ANDREA PALASCIANO SANNE WASS

The US president over the weekend explained his decision to detain Venezuela's leader and have the US run the country as a modern revival of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine — the “Donroe Doctrine’ as he dubbed it. The principle essentially claims a US right to lead the entire Western Hemisphere, and to control any critical assets within it.

To Mr Trump, that includes Greenland.

He made the connection explicit following the military strike in Venezuela, saying he “absolutely” needs to control the semi-autonomous territory within the Danish kingdom for security purposes. The logic is not just Trump bluster — the White House recently laid it out in a national security strategy. And Mr Trump has now used the policy to justify his audacious intervention in Venezuela, showing just how far he will go.

For Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), that carries titanic ramifications. Mr Trump moving on Greenland would pit the US against other members of the transatlantic military alliance it leads and helped found, tarnishing Nato’s credibility and heaping an unprecedented burden on the European Union to enter the military realm.

“If the US chooses to attack another Nato country militarily, then everything stops, including Nato, and thus the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War,’ Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday night on Danish broadcaster TV2.

Greenland, of course, is not Venezuela, as numerous European officials have been quick to argue. The Arctic island falls under Nato’s collective defence guarantee, which asserts that an attack on one alliance member is an attack on all. The US also has ready access to the island already, maintaining a local military base. That should all, in theory, provide a considerable deterrent against any traditional military assault.