Max Colchester

Trump received a text message from the prime minister of Norway saying, let's hold on, let's have a chat and talk this through ostensibly.

And Trump replies with this amazing message, essentially saying that because he was snubbed by the Nobel Prize Committee, he's no longer committed to the pursuit of peace and that he should take control of Greenland.

We've seen a significant escalation in the rhetoric around Greenland.

We've seen him come out and say, America needs Greenland for national security reasons, and anyone who stands in my way of getting it will be punished.

This is potentially a huge deal, which could see a reshaping of the transatlantic relationship between Europe and America.

But it was in the wake of that action in Venezuela that everyone said, well, if you're willing to take that kind of action in Venezuela, what would you do about Greenland?

And he then came back and said, well, actually, yeah, we need Greenland.

And so now suddenly this was a U.S.

leader who was willing to take those kinds of risks.

What Trump was saying in his argument for controlling Greenland is that essentially the EU and Denmark in particular doesn't have the financial muscle to actually defend Greenland or protect the Arctic.

So that's the premise of this.

And it wasn't a very big contingent.

It was a few dozen soldiers from a handful of European countries.

And they arrived.

And the way some European officials now see it is that Trump saw that not as a show of strength by Europe, as a sort of an antagonistic move by Europe to basically tell him to back off.

Yeah, exactly.

This was a bunch of European countries trying to flex their muscles and that actually Trump took this as a slight as opposed to a reassurance.

So Trump's response was to come out on Truth Social and threaten the contingent of around seven European countries that sent those troops with 10% tariffs by February 1st if they continued to stand in his way and stop him purchasing Greenland.

And they said that he would escalate that to 25% if they didn't basically relinquish and allow him to buy Greenland and that this would stay in place until the deal was done.

The EU does have a tool called the anti-coercion instrument or the bazooka, as they call it, whereby they can impose pretty stringent export and import restrictions on a country that tries to economically blackmail them.