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 influence. 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 at risk of being canceled. Amid Frederiksen’s emergency assembly with enterprise leaders, her international minister’s emergency assembly with get together leaders, and an extra emergency assembly of the foreign-affairs committee in Parliament, the whole lot, 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 advised which route 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 person wished to say something on the document in any respect. Thus have People who voted for Trump due to the putatively excessive value of eggs now precipitated a political disaster in Scandinavia.
In personal discussions, the adjective that was most steadily used to explain the Trump cellphone name was tough. The verb most steadily used was threaten. The response most steadily 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} price of commerce with america, and have main American investments too. They thought these have been optimistic features of the Danish-American relationship. Denmark and america 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 become a vulnerability. On Thursday afternoon Frederiksen emerged and, flanked by her international minister and her protection minister, made an announcement. “It has been steered from the American facet,” she stated, “that sadly a state of affairs could come up the place we work much less collectively than we do right now within the financial space.”
Nonetheless, essentially the most troublesome side of the disaster shouldn’t be the necessity to put together for an unspecified financial risk from a detailed ally, however the want to deal with a sudden sense of just about Kafkaesque absurdity. In fact, Trump’s calls for are illogical. Something that the U.S. theoretically would possibly wish to do in Greenland is already potential, proper now. Denmark has by no means stopped the U.S. navy from constructing bases, trying to find minerals, or stationing troops in Greenland, or from patrolling sea lanes close by. Up to now, the Danes have even let People defy Danish coverage in Greenland. Over lunch, one former Danish diplomat advised me a Chilly Battle story, which unfolded not lengthy after Denmark had formally declared itself to be a nuclear-free nation. In 1957, the U.S. ambassador however approached Denmark’s then–prime minister, H. C. Hansen, with a request. The US was focused on storing some nuclear weapons at an American base in Greenland. Would Denmark prefer to be notified?
Hansen responded with a cryptic notice, which he characterised, in line with diplomatic information, as “casual, private, extremely secret and restricted to 1 copy every on the Danish and American facet.” Within the notice, which was not shared with the Danish Parliament or the Danish press, and certainly was not made public in any respect till the Nineteen Nineties, Hansen stated that for the reason that U.S. ambassador had not talked about particular plans or made a concrete request, “I don’t suppose your remarks give rise to any remark from my facet.” In different phrases, When you don’t inform us that you’re preserving nuclear weapons in Greenland, then we received’t must object.
The Danes have been loyal U.S. allies then, and stay so now. Throughout the Chilly Battle, they have been central to NATO’s planning. After the Soviet Union dissolved, they reformed their navy, 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, it is a greater mortality price 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 based mostly 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 improper?” one Danish official requested me.
Clearly, they did nothing improper—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) folks suspect a much more irrational rationalization: Trump simply needs the U.S. to look bigger on a map.
This intuition—to disregard present borders, legal guidelines, and treaties; to deal with different international locations 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 steered a referendum may be held in Greenland, evaluating that risk to the pretend referenda, held underneath duress, that Russia staged in Crimea and jap Ukraine.
In fact, Trump would possibly neglect about Greenland. But in addition, he may not. No one is aware of. He operates on whims, generally selecting up concepts from the final particular person he met, generally 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 additionally it is now everlasting, and there’s no going again.