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By Imran Khalid
Geostrategic Analyst
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In the opening weeks of 2026, the world is witnessing a return to a style of American foreign policy that treats the map not as a collection of sovereign states, but as a portfolio of distressed assets. On Friday, President Donald Trump once again directed his gaze toward Greenland, asserting that the United States would "do something" about the Arctic island —"whether they like it or not." This rhetoric, following the recent and dramatic extraction of Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, Venezuela, suggests a shift from the post-Cold War order of rules and norms to a new, raw doctrine of transactional realism.
The current tension over Greenland is not merely a repeat of the 2019 diplomatic spat. It is now framed within a broader strategic competition. The White House argues that American ownership is a prerequisite for Arctic security, citing the specter of Russian and Chinese encirclement. In a meeting with oil executives, the president characterized the acquisition as a necessity to prevent adversaries from becoming "neighbors." The administration has even reportedly discussed direct payments to Greenland’s 57,000 residents, ranging from $10,000 to $170,000, as an incentive to secede from Denmark.
This approach treats national sovereignty as a commodity with a price tag. For the European Union, this is more than an eccentric proposal; it is an existential challenge to the Westphalian system. The reaction from Brussels and Copenhagen has been swift and unusually unified. Leaders from France, Germany, Italy, and Poland have issued a joint statement affirming that Greenland’s future rests solely with its people and the Danish Kingdom. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen went further, warning that any military move against a NATO ally would effectively end the alliance.
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To understand the European alarm, one must look at the recent American action in Venezuela. Operation Absolute Resolve, which saw U.S. forces seize Maduro on January 3, has served as a proof of concept for this administration’s willingness to bypass international law in favor of direct results.
While the White House justifies the raid as a law enforcement action against "narcoterrorism," the subsequent meeting with oil executives to discuss $100 billion in investments reveals the underlying logic. The administration views Venezuela not just as a security problem, but as a resource-rich territory that requires American management to ensure stability and "total safety" for energy markets.
Critical review of these actions suggests a pattern in which "stability" is used as a synonym for "control." In Venezuela, the removal of a dictator has not yet yielded a democratic transition; instead, it has created a legal and political vacuum where the U.S. Treasury now manages Venezuelan oil revenues through executive order. This "Caracas Precedent" is precisely what frightens European leaders when they hear the president speak of taking Greenland "the hard way" if a deal cannot be struck.
Furthermore, the administration's dismissal of the 1951 defense agreement with Denmark as insufficient suggests that no existing treaty is sacred if it conflicts with a property-based view of security. By claiming that one can only "defend ownership" rather than "leases," the White House is essentially signaling to every ally hosting a U.S. base that their sovereignty is conditional.
The likely scenarios ahead suggest a deepening rift within the Atlantic alliance. One path is a "sovereignty-sharing" compromise, perhaps modeled on the Compacts of Free Association the U.S. maintains with Pacific island nations. This would allow Greenland to remain technically autonomous while handing its defense and security entirely to Washington. However, given the current mood in Nuuk, where the local government has declared that "Greenland belongs to us," such a deal seems unlikely without significant coercion.
Europe’s response is already shifting from diplomatic protests to economic leverage. The European Parliament is moving to freeze a major U.S.-EU trade deal, signaling that the cost of American territorial ambitions will be paid in market access. There is even talk of a "European Rapid Deployment" to Greenland to bolster its territorial integrity. The EU is beginning to realize that if it cannot protect the borders of its own members' territories, the concept of European strategic autonomy is a dead letter.
Ultimately, the Greenland gambit represents a fundamental misreading of power in the 21st century. True security in the Arctic, as in South America, depends on legitimate institutions and stable alliances, not just the physical possession of land or the control of oil fields. By treating the world as a real estate ledger, the United States risks winning the property but losing the neighborhood. The tragedy of this new transactionalism is that it may secure the Arctic’s minerals while destroying the very alliance that has kept the North Atlantic peaceful for eighty years.
Imran Khalid is a geostrategic analyst and columnist on international affairs. His work has been widely published by prestigious international news organizations and publications.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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