Europe drawing up plan for possible NATO mission on Greenland, mulling sanction against US companies in response to US’ continued threats: media
The NATO headquarters building in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. Photo: Xinhua
The UK is in talks with European allies about deploying a military force to Greenland that would guard the Arctic region, media reported on Saturday, after US President Donald Trump claimed that the US will take Greenland the “hard way” if it can’t do it the “easy way.”
According to a report by The Telegraph on Saturday, military chiefs are drawing up plans for a possible NATO mission on the island, over which the US president has made repeated claims.
British officials have met with counterparts from countries including Germany and France in recent days to start the preparations, per the report. The plans, still at an early stage, could involve British soldiers, warships and planes being deployed to protect Greenland.
It could be a full-blown troop deployment or a combination of time-limited exercises, intelligence sharing, capability development and rerouted defence spending, per the report.
European nations are hoping that significantly stepping up their presence in the Arctic would persuade US President to abandon his ambition to annex the strategic island, per The Telegraph.
The move came after US president on Friday continued his push toward Greenland. Trump told reporters at the White House that if he is unable to make a deal to acquire the territory “the easy way,” then he will have to “do it the hard way,” CNN reported on Saturday.
The Telegraph also reported that the European Union is drawing up plans for sanctions on US companies should Trump reject the offer of a NATO deployment. Technology giants such as Meta, Google, Microsoft and X could be restricted from operating on the Continent, as could American banks and financial firms.
A more extreme option could be to evict the US military from its bases in Europe, denying it a key staging post for operations in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The leaders of five Greenland political parties in parliament issued a joint statement late Friday after the US President again suggested the use of force to seize the Danish autonomous territory. “We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danish, we want to be Greenlanders,” the leaders of five parties in parliament said in a joint statement, reported France24 on Saturday.
“The future of Greenland must be decided by Greenlanders,” they added.
Greenland “will not be annexed”, the longtime leader of its largest labor union has declared, refuting Trump’s claims that the Arctic territory’s current status poses a national security threat to the US, The Guardian reported on Friday.
Jess Berthelsen, chair of SIK, Greenland’s national trade union confederation, said people in the territory do not recognize the US president’s allegations that Russian and Chinese ships are scattered throughout its waters. “We can’t see it, we can’t recognize it and we can’t understand it,” he said.
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, is set to meet his Danish counterpart next week, with European officials hoping he can act as a moderating influence on Trump, per media reports.
US president’s pursuit of the territory has plunged NATO into crisis and prompted speculation that the 75-year-old alliance could fall apart, foreign media reported.
Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Sunday that current US administration’s recent series of threats to annex Greenland will create deep rifts within NATO, and the seeds of division have already been sown.
“Washington’s actions are undermining the unity and cohesion of the alliance. For NATO’s European member states, ramping up their military presence in Greenland is a response to US President’s plan to seize control of the island. It follows that the disputes between the US and Europe within NATO over Greenland will grow increasingly acute for the time being and in the period ahead, and such acute frictions will ultimately exacerbate the strategic rifts between the two sides,” Li noted.
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