Beyond Parody: Greenland, Threats, and the Self-Destruction of U.S. Credibility

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• The Europeans are, so far, presenting a very powerful and unified front. There is now a conversation about hitting back with $93 billion in tariffs, retaliatory tariffs, and potentially using the EU’s anti-coercion instrument (ACI) to target U.S. companies (likely major U.S. tech firms) with restrictions and penalties in response to Trump’s rhetoric and threats against Greenland.
• This will be discussed at an EU-wide ministerial meeting on Thursday.
• The fact that the Trump administration messaging on Greenland has been poor to date (as discussed in the posts over the weekend, here, and here), has made it very easy for Europeans to stick together and develop a unified, powerful narrative to counter Trump’s assertions regarding Greenland.
• Adding to this, the letter sent to the Norwegian prime minister was leaked and revealed by the PBS NewsHour lead reporter and anchor, and was widely mocked on X for its content.
• In this letter addressed to the Norwegian prime minister, Donald Trump appears to imply that because the Nobel Committee did not award him a peace prize, Greenland is now under threat.
• Just look at how the letter starts:
• “Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace..”
• Obviously, leaving aside the complete insanity of this rhetoric (how deranged it sounds) and the fact that the Norwegian government does not control the Nobel Committee, which is a non-governmental institution, linking these two issues together is absurd.
• Punishing Denmark and Greenland over something Norway could or could not do (which, again, to be clear, Norway does not control) is ridiculous.
• Not to mention, of course, that there is absolutely no legitimate connection between these issues whatsoever.
• You cannot go around threatening the annexation of an allied country’s territory because you are displeased with an outcome in an entirely unrelated political arena.
• This is beyond parody, and precisely because it is beyond parody, Europeans are even further emboldened to stick together and push back against Trump.
• It is one thing to take a conciliatory or appeasing tone toward a rational actor with powerful and legitimate arguments behind them.
• Appeasing and submitting to this, however, is far costlier still.
• And so, once again, this strengthens the Europeans’ hand.

Trump’s supposed “grown-up” cabinet member did not deliver much either

• The messaging from the rest of the senior leadership has not been good either.
• We have discussed how Stephen Miller continues to repeat bogus claims about Greenland.
• But Scott Bessent (the alleged serious person in the cabinet) has also resorted to poor argumentation on this issue.
• He has threatened Europeans by saying that Europe needs the United States for its security and depends on the U.S. security umbrella.
• He then dared Europeans to find out what would happen if the United States withdrew its protection of Ukraine and withdrew that so-called luxury of the U.S. security umbrella as it relates to Ukraine.
• Bessent: “What would happen in Ukraine if the US pulled its support out? The whole thing would collapse…”
• It is quite astonishing how crude and unsophisticated this threat is.
• Beyond that, however, Bessent appears not to understand the leverage at play here.
• The argument being made to Europeans—that they should submit to U.S. demands and allow the annexation of their territory or else lose the U.S. security umbrella—is fundamentally uncredible.
• From a European perspective, the entire issue becomes moot.
• How credible is U.S. security for Ukraine (a far-away territory in Trump’s mind) if the same power, the United States, is willing to annex European territory in the West?
• Is there any value, any credibility, in the words of a president and his willingness to commit troops to defend Europe in the East against a major adversary willing to absorb hundreds of thousands of deaths per year, if that same president is threatening annexation unless Europeans comply and shamefully submit to his deranged demands?
• In other words, Bessent does not seem to understand that by issuing these threats, he is effectively erasing and dissolving whatever leverage he might have had over Europe.
• If Europeans are to take his statements seriously, then the entire issue is moot.
• There is not much to lose anyway.
• If one takes what Bessent says at face value, then U.S. protection and the security umbrella over Ukraine already do not exist.
• The protection of Europe likely does not exist either.
• So what, then, is the point of the threat?
• There is nothing to lose.
• Consequently, not only is Trump himself poor in his messaging, but his inner circle also frequently misunderstands the basic fact that certain threats cannot be delivered in such an extremely crude and unsophisticated manner..
• Because doing so ultimately destroys America’s credibility, and therefore, undermines our own interests.