Trump's Greenland ambitions could wreck 20th-century alliances that helped build the modern world order

Trump’s Greenland ambitions could wreck 20th-century alliances that helped build the modern world order
Published: January 19, 2026 12:39pm EST

Donald Heflin
Executive Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice, The Fletcher School, Tufts University


(The Conversation) Make Denmark angry. Make Norway angry. Make NATO’s leaders angry.

President Donald Trump’s relentless and escalating drive to acquire Greenland from Denmark, whose government – along with that of Greenland – emphatically rejects the idea, has unnerved, offended and outraged leaders of countries considered allies for decades.

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As a former diplomat, I’m aware that how the U.S. treats its allies has been a crucial question in every presidency, since George Washington became the country’s first chief executive. On his way out of that job, Washington said something that Trump, Vance and their fellow America First advocates would probably embrace.



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Alliance counters fascism

As both Hitler and Japan began to attack their neighbors in the late 1930s, it became clear to President Franklin Roosevelt and other American military and political leaders that the U.S. would get caught up in World War II. If nothing else, airplanes had erased America’s ability to hide behind the Atlantic Ocean.

Though public opinion was divided, the U.S. began sending arms and other assistance to Britain and quietly began military planning with London. This was despite the fact that the U.S. was formally neutral, as the Roosevelt administration was pushing the limits of what a neutral nation can do for friendly nations without becoming a warring party. ................(more)

https://theconversation.com/trumps-greenland-ambitions-could-wreck-20th-century-alliances-that-helped-build-the-modern-world-order-273863