Over Greenland, Europeans find their inner steel

With his threat to seize Greenland, Donald Trump offered the Europeans a moment of sobering clarity. In the words of Bart De Wever: ‘The guy with the big stick is now coming after us.’

Faced with the brutality of the US approach, the Europeans finally stood firm and together found a means of retaliation. Sending soldiers, even if only a handful, was a strong symbolic gesture. Tactically, it worked to call Trump’s bluff. Politically, it reminded the Americans that European nations have troops they perhaps do not want to open fire on. This then moved the conflict to the theatre of economic stand-off, where European forces are more equal to those of the US. Weapons of economic retaliation are at our disposal. The markets worked in the EU’s favour. To their surprise, the Europeans were able to claim a partial victory in Davos.

Greenland was perhaps the one issue Trump could have chosen that would find Europeans unexpectedly united. Tellingly, it was the first US threat to our territory which led to a rally around the flag. With his Arctic land-grab threat, Trump touched the sovereignty nerve. He attempted Monroe-Doctrine imperial expansionism over the largest piece of European territory in the Western Hemisphere. Ranks closed surprisingly fast. It united the continent across the political spectrum, from left to nationalist right. A rare feat in itself.

The two dominant currents in US foreign policy expose Europeans to division. When Trump picks from the great-power playbook and retreats into America’s own hemisphere – abandoning Europe to face Russia – some governments will beg the US to remain with Europe at all costs, while others will privilege accelerating work on independence. When he picks from the MAGA agenda, exporting culture wars to the European continent, the US president can count on divided public opinion and on cautious or even sympathetic leaders.

But with Greenland Trump went too far, and European public opinion reacted with outrage. People have started to realize what is going on. According to an ECFR poll, only 16% of the public still view the US as an ally; 20% see it as either a rival or an adversary. Notwithstanding the 50% sitting on the fence (‘necessary partner’), these staggering numbers mark a breakdown of the transatlantic consensus at the societal level.

Strikingly, public opinion regarding the US appears to be well ahead of governments and official discourse. To some extent this is natural; leaders and diplomats need to de-escalate tensions and keep relations open. But the discursive gap between official prose and what the people think is widening. Talk of ‘Transatlanticism’, as if it was still 2023, will soon lose all credibility.

In parallel, support for the EU is now higher than it has ever been in many places. Denmark, Sweden and Finland, countries that have previously been lukewarm, are experiencing soaring EU support. The latest Eurobarometer, released earlier this week, confirms these findings: over 67% of Europeans wish for a stronger and more assertive EU.

Here lies a unique opportunity to increase Europe’s capacity to act and to defend itself.  Political leaders must embrace this momentum and translate it into decisions. Three fields of action come to mind.

First of all, Europe needs to map both its leverage and its vulnerabilities. We tend to highlight our very real dependencies on US military power and Big Tech, but we should not underestimate our economic sway. The primary lever of action, which both the US and the EU reached for during Trump’s first administration, lies in the tit-for-tat tariff war. But it is not the only weapon. In the last ten days it has started to dawn on financial analysts that Europeans could trigger enough turmoil on the stock and bond markets to function as a credible deterrent. In Denmark, the national pension fund sold $100 million in holdings of US debt. Although a small move in the broader market, it is a sign that, with a dose of political will, Europe’s role as creditor of $8 trillion of US stocks and debt can give it political leverage. But then again, the central role of the US dollar in the world economy ensures America wields a powerful weapon.

All this begs for clear-eyed scenario exercises so that when (not if) the Trump Administration next resorts to economic or other forms of intimidation, Europe knows which cards it can play, and what pain it can inflict in response. The EU will hardly beat Trump in a game of poker, but we can draw self-confidence and assertiveness from the strength of solid deterrence.

The second priority must be to build strength at home. Next week’s European Council retreat at Alden Biesen castle (in Belgium) on competitiveness and economic security comes at the right moment. After the high stakes of the Greenland stand-off, leaders recognize that Europe’s economic strength is foundational. Everything builds on it. Rather than going off in all directions with bureaucratic roadmaps and action plans (the natural impulse of compromise decision-making), they should now establish a binding strategy with a compelling narrative on the three to five short- and mid-term priorities, the things that do most to reduce our dependency.

In doing this, leaders should heed the loud public call to be protected against America's authoritarian turn and focus on how our independence from the US can be increased. For instance, by reducing Europe’s dollar dependence through the faster introduction of the digital euro (currently subject to a languid negotiation lacking any sense of strategic urgency). Similarly, this is the opportune moment to push for an independent digital infrastructure and the creation of a sovereign European cloud, at the very least for core state functions. Only by combining the force of public opinion with the joint leaders’ political authority can the usual resistance from US vested (tech) interests and bureaucratic inertia be overcome. Concrete action will give the derisking agenda bite.

Thirdly, the same logic of action must guide Europe’s external economic strategy. Trade and partnerships are no longer technocratic briefs; they are instruments of economic statecraft. With the newly inked EU-Mercosur and EU-India agreements, and the many other trade deals in the pipeline (such as those with Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Mexico), Europe’s room for manoeuvre increases. They are all building blocks of a wider coalition. As Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney said, middle powers must band together. European leaders could take the initiative by convening these middle powers – starting with those in the G20. Together, they will be able to balance the US and China. Only power can stop power.

Following the Greenland truce, Europeans have gained some breathing space. But in a matter of weeks or even days we might be mired in the next Trump crisis, sucking up time and energy from all Europe’s leaders and decision-makers. Now is the moment to plot a steady course of action, confident in the knowledge that we can stand up and say no.