Not since the British Royal Navy bombarded Copenhagen in 1807 has an English-speaking world power caused Danish officials such anxiety.
Then again, who but President-elect Donald Trump could revive the spirit of that same century’s Monroe Doctrine and “Manifest Destiny”?
According to CNN, multiple senior officials in Denmark have reacted with trepidation to what they regard as Trump’s sincere desire to acquire the large Arctic island of Greenland, originally a Danish colony before achieving semi-autonomous status as a district of Denmark in 1953.
Since his victory in the 2024 election, Trump has made no secret of his interest in Greenland. In fact, Donald Trump Jr. visited the island earlier this week, though only in a private capacity.
“Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation. We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!” the president-elect wrote Monday on his social media platform TruthSocial.
Thus, Danish officials now take Trump far more seriously than when he raised the idea during his first administration.
“The ecosystem supporting this idea is totally different now,” one senior Danish official told CNN.
Indeed, “[t]his seems much more serious,” another senior Danish official said.
The heightened seriousness, of course, stems from that changed ecosystem.
Do you think America should somehow acquire Greenland?
For instance, thanks to what passes for leadership under President Joe Biden, the world has grown more perilous. Trump has insisted, and for good reason, that Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine would not have occurred on his watch.
Furthermore, Russia and China have forged closer ties under Biden. And those two world powers have conducted regular joint air patrols in the Arctic, according to CNN.
At a press conference Wednesday from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump described that situation as unacceptable.
“You look outside [and] you have China[‘s] ships all over the place. You have Russian ships all over the place,” Trump said in a clip posted to the social media platform X. “We’re not letting that happen.”
Moments later, Trump left Danish officials in no doubt as to his seriousness.
“I would tariff Denmark at a very high level” Trump said of his willingness to pressure the Danes.
BREAKING: President Trump just announced that he will place massive tariffs on Denmark if they don’t immediately relinquish all control of Greenland.
“We need Greenland for national security purposes.”
LET THE 3D CHESS COMMENCE! pic.twitter.com/mZaqY3V2Y6
— George (@BehizyTweets) January 7, 2025
Above all, the prospect of an independent Greenland seems to have awakened Trump’s inner 19th-century statesman.
In fact, last month Prime Minister Múte Egede of Greenland insisted that the island must have its independence from Denmark.
“Greenland is ours,” Egede said. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.
That has at least one U.S. defense official nervous, according to CNN, which acknowledged that independence could make Greenland “more vulnerable to Russian and Chinese influence.”
Thus, Trump appears to view Greenland in much the same way that President Thomas Jefferson once viewed New Orleans. As long as that crucial city remained part of the decrepit Spanish Empire, Jefferson had few concerns. The prospect of New Orleans’s transfer to Napoleon Bonaparte’s France, however, set in motion a series of events that prompted Jefferson to make the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
Of course, that breathtaking acquisition led to a century of Western expansion under the spirit of “Manifest Destiny.”
Needless to say, Trump has not targeted Greenland for expansion, much less exploitation.
Instead, he has effectively reasserted the principles once proclaimed by one of Jefferson’s proteges and successors, President James Monroe, who in 1823 issued a unilateral declaration — the Monroe Doctrine — proclaiming the Western Hemisphere off limits to outside colonial powers.
Now, 202 years later, Trump has taken action designed to enforce that doctrine.
To his credit, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen knows a serious man when he sees one.
“We are open to a dialogue with the Americans on how we can possibly cooperate even more closely than we do to ensure that the American ambitions are fulfilled,” Rasmussen told reporters Wednesday, CNN reported.
In short, 21st-century Americans have no interest in war or conquest. And neither does Trump.
Nonetheless, the president-elect’s willingness to use 19th-century tools and language, from tariffs to the Monroe Doctrine, seems in some ways to have conjured a dormant national spirit from a bygone era, and some Americans might find it jarring because they struggle to take it seriously, having gone decades without seeing or hearing a powerful American statesman prioritize actual American security.
Clearly, Danish officials have had no such difficulty in taking Trump seriously.
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