By deploying troops to Greenland in response to Donald Trump’s annexation threats, European states draw an unprecedented red line against Washington, signalling that the era of automatic deference in the transatlantic relationship may be coming to an end.

Europe has delivered an unexpected answer to Donald Trump’s renewed threats to annex Greenland by dispatching troops to the Danish autonomous territory for a military exercise. Germany, France, Norway. Sweden, as well as Finland and Estonia, have joined Denmark in reinforcing the island’s security. It is the first time since Trump’s return to the centre of international politics that Europe has confronted the former US president directly and drawn clear limits.

The trilateral meeting went sour

The move follows a tense trilateral meeting between American, Danish, and Greenlandic officials that ended without resolving what Copenhagen described as a “fundamental disagreement” over the island’s status. Within hours, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he still intended to take control of Greenland and that “there’s not a thing that Denmark can do about it.”

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who described the talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio as “frank,” went out of his way to insist he was “no modern-day Neville Chamberlain.” To complete the historical analogy, that would make Trump… Hitler? Rasmussen added that Greenlanders would never choose to join the United States, even if Washington were to pay the rumoured price tag of $700 billion. “You trade with people; you don’t trade people,” he later said on Fox News.

Any diplomatic progress was swiftly offset by Trump’s mockery of Denmark’s military capacity, joking that it had added “a second dog sled” to its arsenal. The remarks prompted an unusually direct rebuke from Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. An EU diplomat, however, cut short the sled talk: rhetoric matters less than facts on the ground. And on the ground, European military personnel are now arriving in Greenland.

Europe finally reacts to Trump’s threats

The gesture goes far beyond its strictly military dimension and carries a deeper geopolitical meaning. It is an assertion of strategic sovereignty at a moment when Washington appears once again to practice a diplomacy of intimidation, grounded in the logic of force and territorial expansion. By intervening in a coordinated manner, European states signal that they will not accept the normalisation of neo-imperial rhetoric in the North Atlantic and that they are prepared to defend collectively the territorial integrity of one of their own - even when that “own” takes the form of an autonomous territory.

Greenland occupies a central position on the Arctic chessboard. The region is increasingly contested because of emerging maritime routes, vast mineral and energy resources, and the growing presence of China and Russia in these routes. By responding to Trump’s threats, Europeans are not merely protecting Denmark; they are reaffirming the Arctic as a space governed by multilateral norms rather than a free zone for unilateral adventures. In this sense, the deployment is as much about the rules of the international order as it is about the island itself.

This marks an unprecedented inflection in Europe’s posture: less reliant on the political umbrella of the United States and more conscious of the need to act as an autonomous geopolitical actor. Militarily, the deployment is modest. Politically, it is weighty. It marks the transition from a reactive Europe to a Europe capable of imposing red lines - even vis-à-vis Washington - and suggests that the era of automatic deference to American power may be drawing to a close.

Brussels is still afraid of Donald Trump

Yet this is not, strictly speaking, a European Union decision. The troops were sent by individual states, not by Brussels. Here, optimism fades. The EU, riven by internal divisions and long accustomed to strategic subordination to the United States, would struggle to take such a step collectively.

The gap between rhetoric and reality has widened further in recent days. Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius floated the idea of a 100,000-strong EU army and a new European security architecture, only to be shot down by the Commission. He also suggested that the EU’s mutual defence clause “definitely” covers Greenland, a view that Ursula von der Leyen declined to confirm.

However, the atmosphere is bleak enough that EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas reportedly joked to MEPs that it might be “a good moment to start drinking.” Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže recommended a bottle of Rig dry gin; Finnish MEP Mika Aaltola suggested the extra-strong beer Sandels, adding that it was important to stay clear-headed.

Will Europeans fight Americans in Greenland?

Would Europeans actually fight Americans in the event of an invasion? The question is no longer theoretical. Legally, Denmark would be entitled to invoke collective defence mechanisms, whether through NATO, the EU, or bilateral commitments. Politically, a direct military clash with the United States remains almost unthinkable.

The European deployment is therefore best read as deterrence rather than preparation for combat: a physical reminder that Greenland is not unclaimed territory, that any attempt to seize it would entail costs, reputational and strategic, that Washington has not faced since the end of the Cold War. The objective is to raise the threshold of action, not to wage war.

Deterrence, however, only works if the threat is credible. That credibility rests less on troop numbers than on unity and resolve. By acting together, even outside EU structures, European states are constructing a minimal but visible line of defense, one that transforms Trump’s rhetoric from theatrical bluster into a concrete test of transatlantic relations.

Europe’s response over Greenland is thus fragile, partial, and experimental. But it is also unprecedented. It reveals a continent tentatively learning to think in terms of power, boundaries, and deterrence, even when the challenger is its traditional protector. If this bodes badly, it is because it does. The post-war order was built on the assumption that American power, however overwhelming, would be exercised within a shared framework. Trump’s Greenland gambit destroys that premise. Europe’s reply suggests that it is beginning, very late, to grasp the implications.

In sum, the transatlantic alliance is already broken, some European officials say. At least the illusion of automatic reliability is broken, so why not cut ties with the U.S. on military collaboration?

Ricardo Martins, Doctor in Sociology with specialisation in geopolitics and international relations. Courtesy

https://journal-neo.su/2026/01/19/europes-unexpected-reply-to-trump-over-greenland-a-last-crack-in-the-transatlantic-alliance/