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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.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister Mark Carney urged middle powers to unite against coercion from aggressive superpowers, warning “compliance will not buy safety” in a world where the rules-based international order has collapsed.
According to a survey by public opinion pollster Research Co., released Monday January 19, 2026, few Americans share Trump’s expansionist aspirations.
Two thirds of Americans (66%) want Canada to remain an independent nation, while 10% would “prefer” Canada become a US territory and 7% would declare it the 51st State.
The results are similar when Americans ponder Mexico, with just over two thirds (67%) maintaining the status quo of Mexico as an independent nation and fewer opting for the country to become a US territory (10%) or an American state (5%).
Trump posted a doctored image on social media early Tuesday morning showing the president surrounded by European leaders in the Oval Office with a map displaying Canada, Greenland and Venezuela covered in the US flag. The photo was one in a string of posts from the president overnight.
Screenshot-2026-01-20-Trump-posts-doctored-image-of-U.S.-flag-over-Canada.png
Source:
Mark Colley, Toronto Star: Trump posts doctored image of U.S. flag over Canada, Greenland https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/trump-posts-doctored-image-of-u-s-flag-over-canada-greenland/article_61baa2ca-210a-4526-941c-fa2f54026a10.html
EU officials and leaders are getting behind the idea, while lawmakers are drafting legal options.
“We lack a proper united leadership platform to discuss the most important European defense issues,” EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said last week. “It’s now an urgent task to turn this idea into reality.”
Sergey Lagodinsky, a German European Parliament lawmaker and vice president of the Greens group, is proposing a council gathering the leaders of Europe’s big six — Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the U.K. — alongside two rotating seats for smaller countries and the European Parliament president.
Two senior government officials, not authorized to discuss this matter publicly, told the Globe and Mail that Canadian Armed Forces planners modelling a US invasion from the south, expect US forces to overcome Canada’s strategic positions on land and at sea within a week, and possibly as quickly as two days.
Canada does not have the number of military personnel or the sophisticated equipment needed to fend off a conventional American attack.
Trump’s text message on Sunday, January 18, 2026, to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, stating he no longer feels “an obligation to think purely of peace” after he failed to win Norway’s Nobel Peace Prize, was confirmed by Prime Minister Støre.
Trump questioned Denmark’s claim to Greenland and said he would put American interests first. “The world is not secure unless we have complete and total control of Greenland,” Trump wrote.
“This is tyranny,” Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general, told me. “There is no other way to put it. We’re all shocked by it. Nobody ever thought America would look like this. We now don’t have to speculate as to what American fascism looks like. It’s right outside the door.”
Source:
NYT: In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/opinion/trump-minneapolis-ice.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FlA.h9nY.5zovniwEgSkO&smid=url-share
NBC News is reporting that Trump is increasingly complaining to aides about Canada’s vulnerability to adversaries in the Arctic.
As Trump works toward annexing Greenland, he has intensified his criticism of what he sees as Canada’s similar inability to defend its borders against any encroachment from Russia or China.
Greenland is not a marginal issue for Europeans. Threats against it cut to the heart of the idea of Europe, of sovereignty, international law and trust. Key European leaders recently stressed they are united in their position that it is up to Denmark and Greenland to decide their own fate — and no one else. The potential for a crisis is real, and what is most confounding is that this would be a crisis that is entirely unnecessary and easily avoidable.
Threatening to annex territory belonging to a NATO ally strikes at the very foundation of the alliance. NATO is not merely a military grouping; it is a community of liberal democracies that has endured precisely because its members trust — and do not threaten — one another. They consult, negotiate and resolve disputes peacefully. This shared political culture is not a luxury — it is NATO’s greatest strategic asset. It sets us apart from those that depend on threats and tricks to keep their “friends” together.
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