Copenhagen in Shock - How Trump’s Grab for Greenland Cuts to the Core of a Loyal Country

In these days, a heavy, leaden mood hangs over Copenhagen. Not only because of the winter, but because many people in Denmark feel that something fundamental has broken. A relationship that had grown over decades, sustained by loyalty, military cooperation, and the firm belief that both sides stood together. The American president’s threat to take over Greenland “one way or another” has shaken that trust like almost nothing before. Danish soldiers had served side by side with U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, lost comrades, endured deployments because Washington asked them to. That this very ally now mocks Denmark’s defense capabilities and publicly demeans the country feels like a punch to the gut. Denmark never said no; it sent aircraft, it sent soldiers, it paid the price. The current words coming from the White House therefore do not land in the abstract. They strike every Dane personally.

The dismay is also palpable in parliament. Rasmus Jarlov, chairman of the defense committee, openly says what few dare to voice aloud. Of course one knows that the United States is militarily superior. But if a NATO partner were to seriously attack another, then one would defend oneself. That he even has to say this at all, he calls bizarre in the very next breath. It is a sentence that shows how far the situation has already drifted from anything that seemed conceivable in Denmark only recently. Many perceive Washington’s behavior like the rupture of a relationship one believed to be stable. One thought it worked. Apparently it does not. This feeling runs through conversations, commentaries, television programs. Greenland is not just any territory, but part of one’s own identity, the reason a small country carries weight on the world stage. Fifty times larger than Denmark itself, Arctic, raw, symbolically charged.

The president justifies his demands with opaque security arguments, with Russia, with China, with a planned missile defense shield. In Copenhagen, officials soberly point out that the United States already has virtually everything it needs militarily today: bases, access, cooperation, treaties.

Trump’s measures do not appear all that compelling when one soberly looks at the actual scaling back of infrastructure and military presence in Greenland - even if one deliberately strives for a benevolent, friendly reading.

Denmark has for decades been regarded as one of America’s most reliable partners in Europe. Everything, it is said, is negotiable - except the cession of Greenland. When thousands of people filled City Hall Square on Saturday and marched toward the U.S. embassy, it became visible how much anger, fear, and disbelief had been released. At the same time, people protested in Nuuk. A few hours later came the next escalation from Washington: new tariffs on Denmark and other European states to increase pressure. For many, that was the moment when irritation turned into raw anger.

Particularly wounding are the mocking remarks about alleged “two dog sleds” for defending the Arctic. For veterans who fought in Helmand and lost comrades, this is not a punchline, but a mockery of their history. A partnership that always seemed self-evident is suddenly in question. How absurd the situation feels is also reflected in popular culture. Adam Price, the creator of the series “Borgen,” even set a season in Greenland and told stories of power struggles between great powers. That an American president would openly threaten a NATO ally is something he would not have gotten through even as a fictional idea a few years ago. He would have been laughed at. Too exaggerated, too unrealistic. Now it is reality.

Many Danes believe that this is less about strategy than about ego. The president himself spoke of the ownership of Greenland feeling “psychologically right” to him. Aaja Chemnitz, one of the Greenlandic members of the Danish parliament, reacts dryly to this. If it is about him feeling better, perhaps he should sort that out with his therapist. What remains is a country that feels betrayed. A country that was loyal for decades and now has to learn that reliability is apparently not a one-way street. In Copenhagen, people are no longer talking only about Greenland, but about the question of how much an alliance is worth when power becomes more important than respect.