Donald Trump, on his first day as president during his second term signing executive orders, and taking press questions on January 20, 2025 in the Oval Office. Photo by the White House/Wikimedia Commons.

It is sometimes hard to tell whether Donald Trump’s more outrageous statements are just his way of trolling people or whether he believes what he says. Perhaps the US president himself doesn’t know. Take, for instance, his recent demands that Denmark cede Greenland to the United States. At first, the general reaction was that this was just Trump being Trump, blowing hard to get extra publicity without really meaning it. But following a phone call this week with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen the Danes are wondering if he isn’t actually deadly serious. “The Danes are utterly freaked out by this,” according to one source briefed on the contents of the phone call. Trump “was very firm. It was a cold shower. Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious, and potentially very dangerous,” another official said.

The great irony of this is that Denmark has long been perhaps the most loyal and reliable of America’s European allies. For reasons that are not exactly clear, the Danes have time and again shown themselves to be not just willing but also thoroughly enthusiastic supporters of America’s international initiatives, including those of a decidedly dubious nature. Denmark was, for instance, a full-throated supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2021, it emerged that Denmark had

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