On 17 January, demonstrations in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, crystallised a diplomatic drama that has begun to look like a stress test for the post‑war security order. A social‑media post by US President Donald Trump abruptly threatened 10 percent tariffs on imports from eight European countries — Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland — rising to 25 percent in June unless those governments agreed to US demands over Greenland, including Washington’s reported wish to “buy” the island. The announcement came as Denmark launched an Arctic military exercise and several European allies declared they would send personnel to Greenland in response, prompting an unusually blunt joint statement condemning the tariff threat as damaging to transatlantic ties.
The episode cuts to the heart of NATO’s purpose and psychic glue: Article 5, the alliance’s collective‑defence clause that obliges members to treat an attack on one as an attack on all. Analysts, European leaders and commentators quoted in Chinese reporting argue that the unprecedented suggestion of US coercion — economic pressure tied to territorial ambitions and veiled claims of possible force — undermines the premise that alliance members do not use force against one another. Denmark’s prime minister warned that any US military action against a NATO member would spell the end of the alliance; Greenland’s autonomous government also rejected US ownership claims.
European responses have been pointed and largely symbolic. Eight affected countries issued a joint rebuke, and several have dispatched small military contingents to take part in the Danish exercise dubbed “Arctic Endurance.” Officials and commentators in Beijing and Europe interpret these moves as gestures meant to signal resolve while avoiding a full rupture with Washington. Analysts quoted from Fudan University and Beijing Foreign Studies University portrayed the crisis as evidence of a deeper, structural rift in US‑Europe relations rather than a one‑off spat.
The roots of the crisis run deeper than a single tweet. Many European states have for years fretted about American unpredictability on security commitments, trade and alliance burdensharing. The Chinese reporting frames this moment as the culmination of a US strategic posture that wants to retain NATO’s leadership benefits while shrinking the costs America bears — a stance that feeds European doubts about Washington’s reliability and accelerates debates about strategic autonomy in Paris and Berlin.
The practical stakes are straightforward and severe. If an allied power were to threaten or use force against another, Article 5’s moral and political force would be drained: would the United States defend the victim, or would alliance solidarity collapse into transactional bargaining? The most immediate measurement of consequences will be whether the United States backs away from coercive measures, doubles down, or — in the worst conceivable outcome — resorts to military means to seize a territory already claimed by a NATO member.
For Europe, the calculus is painful. Many states lack either the political will or the military capacity to break cleanly with the United States, yet the trust that underpins cooperation has been eroded. Divisions within NATO are longstanding — from France’s push for strategic autonomy to the eastern members’ reliance on Washington — and this episode is speeding up conversations about whether Europe can and should build independent defence capabilities that do not rely on an unpredictable ally.
Observers caution against predicting NATO’s immediate demise. Some analysts cited in the coverage expect the alliance to survive in name because both Europe and the United States still find value in the institutional framework, but warn that its character could change. If Washington’s behaviour becomes consistently transactional and coercive, NATO risks becoming a forum where European members pay in money and political capital for American leadership while seeing little reciprocal restraint from the US on acts that imperil allies’ sovereignty.
For now, much depends on signals: US restraint, European willingness to accept a narrower security compact, or a dangerous escalation that forces clear choices. The deployments to Greenland are likely more symbolic than militarily decisive; their political effect is to mark solidarity without inviting a direct confrontation that could trigger Article 5 obligations. Yet the episode has already hardened attitudes, encouraged talk of “de‑risking” relations with the United States, and lent fresh momentum to debates over European defence integration and industrial autonomy.
The Greenland dispute is therefore less about the ice cap than about geopolitics. It exposes the limits of an alliance built in a different era and asks whether NATO can adapt to a world where a major ally appears willing to weaponise economic policy and threaten forceful acquisition against partners. How the crisis is managed will shape transatlantic cooperation for years: a negotiated retreat by the United States could restore a measure of trust; a persistent turn toward transactionalism would accelerate European efforts to diversify security guarantees and harden the alliance into a looser, more asymmetric club of states.