Marion McKeone: Trump’s tilt at Greenland is a challenge for all of Europe

Threatened takeover comes at the bidding of billionaires and amid a power struggle within the White House: The EU’s best bet may be to appeal to the good sense of US Republican politicians

Major General Søren Andersen on board the Royal Danish Navy's HDMS Knud Rasmussen in Nuuk on Saturday. Several other European countries including France, Germany, the UK, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands also sent troops to Greenland in recent days.  Picture: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

In August 2019, when US president Donald Trump first mused about the acquisition of Greenland, he framed the prospect as a workaday real estate transaction, casting the island as a fixer-upper that could be snapped up on the cheap. 

The Danes were indignant, while the rest of Europe dismissed it as another example of Trump’s buffoonery and bluster.