US President Donald Trump with European leaders at the family photo during the NATO summit at The Hague in June.
Photographer: Simon Wohlfahrt/BloombergTrump’s Greenland Threat Is Stirring Up Europe’s Deepest Divisions
The European Union faces a stress test of whether it can respond as a united force when its sovereignty is challenged.
Europe’s confrontation with Donald Trump over Greenland is fast becoming more than another quarrel. Leaders from across the fragmented continent are on a desperate mission to salvage what they can from the wreckage of the transatlantic alliance with no clear sense of how to do it.
The US president’s renewed demand that Denmark hand over the world’s largest island, coupled with fresh tariff threats and a bid to create a rival global security forum to the United Nations, has landed at a moment of vulnerability. Already split over Russia’s war in Ukraine, the European Union is stretched economically and uncertain of how far it can rely on American security guarantees that once formed its bedrock.