THE NEW YORK TIMES: The American president’s vow to get Greenland, the semiautonomous Danish territory, has thrown the tiny, pro-American Nordic nation into crisis.
Henrik Bager, a Danish soldier who served with Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, said President Trump’s vow to get Greenland from Denmark and his insults about Denmark’s military were “a punch to the gut.”
Rasmus Jarlov, a voluble center-right member of the Danish Parliament and the chairman of its Defense Committee, said that “we know full well that the Americans can destroy us,” but should Mr. Trump, who has not ruled out military force, attack a fellow NATO ally, “of course we will fight back.”
In the next breath, Mr. Jarlov said it was “absolutely so weird to be uttering something like that.”
Casper O. Jensen, a Danish pollster who has lived in the United States and calls it “close to his heart,” sounded like a jilted lover. “I thought we had a really good thing going on,” he said. “Apparently not.”
These are bleak times in Copenhagen, where Danes say they feel betrayed, bewildered and frightened by Mr. Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, the semiautonomous Danish territory and a source of national identity and pride. Greenland, 50 times the size of Denmark, has long made the tiny Nordic nation more of a player on the world stage.
“We’re not small when you add Greenland,” said David Trads, a political commentator and the author of three books on the United States, including his most recent, “America Turns the Clock Back.” “It makes us more important.” » | Elisabeth Bumiller | Photographs by Hilary Swift | Reporting from Copenhagen | Sunday, January 18, 2026
