What did Donald Trump say over the cellphone to Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, on Wednesday? I don’t know which exact phrases he used, however I witnessed their affect. I arrived in Copenhagen the day after the decision—the topic, in fact, was the way forward for Greenland, which Denmark owns and which Trump needs—and found that appointments I had with Danish politicians have been abruptly in peril of being canceled. Amid Frederiksen’s emergency assembly with enterprise leaders, her international minister’s emergency assembly with occasion leaders, and a further emergency assembly of the foreign-affairs committee in Parliament, all the things, impulsively, was in full flux.
The consequence: Mid-morning, I discovered myself standing on the Knippel Bridge between the Danish international ministry and the Danish Parliament, holding a cellphone, ready to be instructed which path to stroll. Denmark in January shouldn’t be heat; I went to the Parliament and waited there. The assembly was canceled anyway. After that, no one needed to say something on the report in any respect. Thus have Individuals who voted for Trump due to the putatively excessive worth of eggs now precipitated a political disaster in Scandinavia.
In personal discussions, the adjective that was most continuously used to explain the Trump cellphone name was tough. The verb most continuously used was threaten. The response most continuously expressed was confusion. Trump made it clear to Frederiksen that he’s severe about Greenland: He sees it, apparently, as a real-estate deal. However Greenland shouldn’t be a beachfront property. The world’s largest island is an autonomous territory of Denmark, inhabited by people who find themselves Danish residents, vote in Danish elections, and have representatives within the Danish Parliament. Denmark additionally has politics, and a Danish prime minister can not promote Greenland any greater than an American president can promote Florida.
On the identical time, Denmark can be a rustic whose international corporations—amongst them Lego, the transport big Maersk, and Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic—do billions of {dollars} value of commerce with the US, and have main American investments too. They thought these have been constructive points of the Danish-American relationship. Denmark and the US are additionally founding members of NATO, and Danish leaders could be forgiven for believing that this issues in Washington too. As a substitute, these hyperlinks change into a vulnerability. On Thursday afternoon Frederiksen emerged and, flanked by her international minister and her protection minister, made an announcement. “It has been prompt from the American aspect,” she mentioned, “that sadly a state of affairs could come up the place we work much less collectively than we do as we speak within the financial space.”
Nonetheless, essentially the most troublesome facet of the disaster shouldn’t be the necessity to put together for an unspecified financial menace from a detailed ally, however the want to deal with a sudden sense of virtually Kafkaesque absurdity. In reality, Trump’s calls for are illogical. Something that the U.S. theoretically may wish to do in Greenland is already potential, proper now. Denmark has by no means stopped the U.S. army from constructing bases, looking for minerals, or stationing troops in Greenland, or from patrolling sea lanes close by. Prior to now, the Danes have even let Individuals defy Danish coverage in Greenland. Over lunch, one former Danish diplomat instructed me a Chilly Conflict story, which unfolded not lengthy after Denmark had formally declared itself to be a nuclear-free nation. In 1957, the U.S. ambassador nonetheless approached Denmark’s then–prime minister, H. C. Hansen, with a request. The USA was focused on storing some nuclear weapons at an American base in Greenland. Would Denmark wish to be notified?
Hansen responded with a cryptic word, which he characterised, in accordance with diplomatic data, as “casual, private, extremely secret and restricted to 1 copy every on the Danish and American aspect.” Within the word, which was not shared with the Danish Parliament or the Danish press, and certainly was not made public in any respect till the Nineties, Hansen mentioned that because the U.S. ambassador had not talked about particular plans or made a concrete request, “I don’t assume your remarks give rise to any remark from my aspect.” In different phrases, If you happen to don’t inform us that you’re conserving nuclear weapons in Greenland, then we gained’t should object.
The Danes have been loyal U.S. allies then, and stay so now. Throughout the Chilly Conflict, they have been central to NATO’s planning. After the Soviet Union dissolved, they reformed their army, creating expeditionary forces particularly meant to be helpful to their American allies. After 9/11, when the mutual-defense provision of the NATO treaty was activated for the primary time—on behalf of the U.S.—Denmark despatched troops to Afghanistan, the place 43 Danish troopers died. As a proportion of their inhabitants, then about 5 million, this can be a greater mortality charge than the U.S. suffered. The Danes additionally despatched troops to Iraq, and joined NATO groups within the Balkans. They thought they have been a part of the net of relationships which have made American energy and affect over the previous half century so distinctive. As a result of U.S. alliances have been primarily based on shared values, not merely transactional pursuits, the extent of cooperation was totally different. Denmark helped the U.S., when requested, or volunteered with out being requested. “So what did we do fallacious?” one Danish official requested me.
Clearly, they did nothing fallacious—however that’s a part of the disaster too. Trump himself can not articulate, both at press conferences or, apparently, over the phone, why precisely he must personal Greenland, or how Denmark can provide American corporations and troopers extra entry to Greenland than they have already got. Loads of others will attempt to rationalize his statements anyway. The Economist has declared the existence of a “Trump doctrine,” and one million articles have solemnly debated Greenland’s strategic significance. However in Copenhagen (and never solely in Copenhagen) individuals suspect a much more irrational rationalization: Trump simply needs the U.S. to look bigger on a map.
This intuition—to disregard current borders, legal guidelines, and treaties; to deal with different nations as synthetic; to interrupt up commerce hyperlinks and destroy friendships, all as a result of the Chief needs to look highly effective—is one which Trump shares with imperialists of the previous. The Russian international minister, Sergei Lavrov, has additionally crowed over the alleged similarity between the U.S. want for Greenland and the Russian want for territory in Ukraine. Lavrov prompt a referendum may be held in Greenland, evaluating that chance to the pretend referenda, held underneath duress, that Russia staged in Crimea and japanese Ukraine.
After all, Trump may overlook about Greenland. But in addition, he won’t. No person is aware of. He operates on whims, typically selecting up concepts from the final particular person he met, typically returning to obsessions he had apparently deserted: windmills, sharks, Hannibal Lecter, and now Greenland. To Danes and just about anybody else who makes plans, indicators treaties, or creates long-term methods utilizing rational arguments, this manner of constructing coverage feels arbitrary, pointless, even surreal. However it’s also now everlasting, and there’s no going again.
