‘Something I Thought I’d Never Have to Write’: Council of Europe Leader Sounds Alarm on Trumps Greenland Moves

AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset penned a scathing rebuke of President Donald Trump’s threats against Greenland in The New York Times on Monday, warning that “if international law can be set aside when it becomes inconvenient, trust is gone.”

Berset’s Times opinion piece struck down any dismissal of Trump’s push for control of Greenland as merely talk, claiming the U.S. arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and Trump’s dismissal of international law show “how quickly words can harden into action.”

“We need to ask ourselves, on both sides of the Atlantic, if we want to live in a world where democracy is recast as weakness, truth as opinion and justice as an option,” wrote Berset.

The secretary general went on to strike down Trump’s justification for a U.S. acquisition of the autonomous territory within Denmark, calling the president’s attempts to paint Greenland as a security threat “a Cold-War mindset.”

“We are witnessing the return of an old strategic reflex: a Cold War mind-set in which geography is treated as destiny and influence as zero-sum, and independence is seen as a strategic risk rather than a democratic choice,” wrote Berset.

He continued:

The fear is that an independent Greenland might one day drift toward Russia’s or China’s orbit, placing their weapons at America’s doorstep. It would be an Arctic repeat of the Bay of Pigs.

[…]

What’s at stake is not only Greenland’s sovereignty, but also trust. Alliances rest on predictability and on the expectation that power, especially allied power, remains bound by law. If international law can be set aside when it becomes inconvenient, trust is gone. If strategic calculations lead to a disregard for sovereignty in Greenland, how will Europe continue to believe in U.S. commitments elsewhere?

Berset’s piece comes as European leaders continue to grapple with how to address Trump’s Greenland rhetoric.

On Friday, Trump threatened to use tariffs to force support for the annexation of Greenland, doubling down over the weekend in a letter sent to multiple European embassies that directly linked his demands to personal grievances over having not received the Nobel Peace Prize.

“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,” wrote Trump in the letter addressed to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

He concluded the letter by once again claiming that “the world is not secure unless we have complete and total control of Greenland.”