European allies remain wary after Trump’s Greenland climbdown, with questions over a purported deal and damaged US-EU relations despite averted crisis.
BRUSSELS: NATO allies breathed a sigh of relief after US President Donald Trump backed down from threats over Greenland, but European leaders remained wary on Thursday.
Trump’s threats to seize the vast Arctic territory, an autonomous part of NATO member Denmark, had plunged transatlantic relations into their deepest crisis in decades.
While the immediate threat to the alliance seemed to have passed, details of any purported deal remained scant. “What is this deal exactly,” asked one EU diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The EU’s 27 leaders will still hold an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday evening to discuss how to handle the unpredictable US leader. “Trump crossed the Rubicon. He might do it again. There is no coming back to what it was,” the diplomat said.
The US leader backed down on Wednesday from both threatening to seize Greenland by force and imposing tariffs against European allies. He said he had reached a “framework” of a deal on the island that satisfies him, claiming it gave Washington “everything we wanted”.
Trump made the turnaround after talks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Davos. Rutte told AFP afterwards that there was “still a lot of work to be done”.
NATO insisted Rutte “did not propose any compromise to sovereignty” in his talks with Trump. That was backed up by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who said she was “informed” the issue was not discussed.
“We can negotiate all political aspects: security, investment, the economy. But we cannot negotiate our sovereignty,” she said.
A second senior European diplomat insisted that the threat of a strong EU reaction had weighed on Trump. “EU firmness and unity have contributed to get him to change his position,” he said.
While the furore over Greenland might have subsided, key questions remained over the US approach to Ukraine and Trump’s mooted “Board of Peace” on Gaza.
There was some early praise for Rutte’s careful handling of Trump. “It seems Rutte had a few further tricks up his sleeve,” a senior NATO diplomat told AFP.
The alliance chief had raised eyebrows by assiduously avoiding any criticism of Trump and turning the subject to a discussion on bolstering Arctic security more broadly. “We are not yet 100% out of the woods, but I guess we can say another war was prevented,” summed up a second NATO diplomat.
