Denmark struggles to stay calm in crisis over Trump threat to take Greenland

Their comments gave away the deep concern within the EU about how to handle the upcoming Trump presidency. “This is not just very serious for Greenland and Denmark – it is serious to the whole world and to Europe as a whole,” MP Karsten Honge said.

“Imagine a world – which we may be facing in just a few weeks – where international agreements don’t exist. That would shake everything up, and Denmark would just be a small part of it.”

The Danish trade sector has similarly been engulfed by deep nervousness after Trump said he would “tariff Denmark at a very high level” if it refused to give up Greenland to the US.

A 2024 Danish Industry study showed that Denmark’s GDP would fall by three points if the US imposed 10% tariffs on imports from the EU to the US as part of a global trade war.

Singling out Danish products from the influx of EU goods would be near-impossible for the US, and would almost certainly result in retaliatory measures from the EU. But trade industry professionals are taking few chances, and in Denmark as elsewhere on the continent huge amounts of resources are being spent internally to plan for potential outcomes of Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.

As his inauguration approaches, Danes are preparing as they can to weather the storm. There is guarded hope that the president-elect could soon shift his focus to grievances towards other EU partners, and that the Greenland question could be temporarily shelved.

But the disquiet brought on by Trump’s refusal to rule out military intervention to seize Greenland remains.

Karsten Honge said Denmark would have suffer whatever decision the US takes.

“They just need to send a small battleship to travel down the Greenland coast and send a polite letter to Denmark,” he said, only partly in jest.

“The last sentence would be: well, Denmark, what you gonna do about it?

“That’s the new reality with regards to Trump.”