Trump's Fixation With Greenland Has Ended

In his long career as a senior Danish politician, including as minister of defense during President Trump's first administration, Claus Hjort Frederiksen said he always valued the Scandinavian nation's tight bond with the U.S.

- Yaroslav Trofimov

And, like many from Denmark, until recently politically one of the more pro-American countries in Europe, he said he is heartbroken today by how the U.S. has turned from best friend to rapacious.

Trump's claim on the Arctic island of Greenland, which accounts for 98% of the Danish kingdom's landmass, has become the most important feature of the bilateral relationship.

"My parents, who had their youth during World War II here, they loved the Americans who came to our rescue in 1945," Frederiksen said. "For me—a person who has been trusting the U.S. all these years since then—it's very hard to experience that it doesn't mean anything anymore that we had fought alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan, in Iraq and many other places, that suddenly we are nothing."

As for his own two sons, Frederiksen added, "They are very very angry with the U.S."