Dalibor Rohac assesses the impact of President Donald Trump’s attempt to take over Greenland.
What is beyond any doubt, however, is that the Greenland episode has damaged the transatlantic relationship in a way that the United States, under Trump or under some future president, will not be able to simply undo. True, in a narrow sense, the outcome of the stand-off is a good one. A deal that addresses reality-based U.S. concerns (sovereignty over military bases, exclusion of China from mining, etc.) is infinitely preferable to a military takeover, which would have ended NATO, or a Danish handover of the island under duress, 1938-style. Yet, it also remains true that the administration could have easily reached the exact same set of arrangements with Copenhagen by simply asking politely—without any of the grotesque threats that the administration addressed to one of America’s most exemplary allies.
What Europeans will remember from the opening weeks of 2026 is an America that has no inhibitions in treating them worse than its adversaries—and only backs off in the face of considerable pressure. On the surface, the facade of the transatlantic relationship today might look the same as it did last year. NATO still exists, the U.S.-EU trade deal is still on (pending ratification), Greenland remains a Danish territory, and Trump seems to have moved on to other subjects. Yet, the residual trust that Europeans had in the United States as a benign, friendly nation, albeit governed by an eccentric and mercurial president, has all but evaporated.
Restoring that trust will take much more than Trump’s defeat at the hands of another Democrat who will declare that “America is back,” as Joe Biden did. It will necessitate a far more thorough repudiation of the MAGA foreign policy agenda than what is likely to occur in the next few election cycles. As a result, it is perfectly believable that U.S. policymakers in the 2050s or later will still be grappling with the fallout from Trump’s megalomaniacal, and totally unnecessary, mistreatment of U.S. allies.
