Former NATO boss and former Danish Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen said on Tuesday, January 20, 2026, that Trump’s insistence that Greenland should become part of the US represented the biggest challenge to NATO since its establishment in 1949.
“It’s really the future of NATO that is at stake,” said Rasmussen, who offers a unique perspective on the crisis as a former leader of both Denmark – from 2001 to 2009 – and NATO, where he served as secretary general from 2009 to 2014.
“The time for flattering is over. It doesn’t work. The fact is Trump only respects force and strength. And unity. That’s exactly what Europe should demonstrate right now,” he told Reuters from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Writing in The Economist, Rasmussen writes:
His world is one in which might makes right: where borders and national sovereignty, from Greenland to Ukraine, are subject to the same cut-throat terms as real estate in New York.
Mr Trump, like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, believes in power and power only. Europe must prepare to play by those same rules.
If Mr Trump does not accept Greenland’s democratic right to self-determination, Europe should first make clear the steps we are prepared to take—and this must extend beyond the threat of retaliatory tariffs.
…
Europe is left, then, with a choice. We can either play Mr Trump’s game of strength—or be forced to suffer what we must.
Source:
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, The Economist: On Greenland, Europe must tell Donald Trump that enough is enough January 20, 2026 https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/01/20/on-greenland-europe-must-tell-donald-trump-that-enough-is-enough
Andrew Gray, Reuters: Greenland crisis shows time for flattering Trump is over, former NATO boss Rasmussen says https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/greenland-crisis-shows-time-flattering-trump-is-over-former-nato-boss-rasmussen-2026-01-20/