France called on Wednesday for NATO to hold an exercise in Greenland and said it was “ready to contribute,” as US President Donald Trump’s push to take the Danish autonomous territory upends the transatlantic alliance.
“France calls for a NATO exercise in Greenland and is ready to contribute to it,” President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.
The comments from Paris come as tensions rise over Greenland and Trump’s repeated threats to annex the territory, citing its importance for national security.
During an unexpected appearance at the White House briefing room on Tuesday, Trump said only “you’ll find out,” when asked how far he was willing to go to seize the world’s largest island.
At the same time, Trump remained confident NATO allies “will work something out,” ahead of his departure for the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
“I think that we will work something out where NATO is going to be very happy, and where we’re going to be very happy,” he said, without providing specifics.
“We have a lot of meetings scheduled on Greenland, and I think things are going to work out pretty well,” Trump told reporters about his Davos meetings.
NATO chief Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that “thoughtful diplomacy” was needed to deal with tensions over Greenland.
“I see that there are these tensions at the moment, there’s no doubt. Again, I’m not going to comment on that, but I can assure you, the only way to deal with that is, in the end, thoughtful diplomacy,” Rutte said in Davos.
Over the weekend, Trump vowed fresh tariffs on European countries including Britain, France and Germany which sent troops to Greenland in solidarity.
He dismissed suggestions that he was putting at risk a deal last year with the EU in which the allies promised to ramp up investment in the United States, saying “They need that agreement very badly with us.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pushed back against Trump’s threats, vowing that the EU’s response “will be unflinching, united and proportional,” as she spoke in Davos on Tuesday.
Taking firmer stances defied the approach that many European leaders have offered since Trump returned to office, mostly appeasing the president to try to stay in his good graces, while working furiously through other avenues to find compromise.
Trump says the US needs Greenland to deter possible threats from China and Russia. But his continued insistence in recent weeks that anything short of the US owning Greenland is unacceptable is testing the limits of the softer strategy.
Additional sources • AP, AFP
