By Simon Nixon

(EurActiv) — Europeans suddenly find themselves confronting a dilemma that few, if any, could have imagined even in their darkest moments. For the past year, their greatest fear was that the US would simply walk away from Europe and NATO, leaving the continent to defend itself against Russian aggression in Ukraine or elsewhere. 

Now they must contemplate the unthinkable: that rather than walking away from Europe, the US is proposing to seize sovereign European territory – that the most explicit threat to the EU and NATO comes from America itself.

Trump has made no secret of his determination to annex Greenland since returning to the White House. Even before launching his operation against Venezuela, Trump signalled his hostile intent by appointing a special envoy to Greenland – an unprecedented diplomatic snub to Denmark, which has sovereignty over the island. 

Since the operation to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump’s determination to assert the “Donroe Doctrine” – America’s claimed right to intervene as it pleases in the Western Hemisphere – is no longer in doubt. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, spelled it out at a press conference over the weekend: when this president says he wants something, he gets it. 

This presents European leaders with desperately unpalatable decisions. The stakes were illustrated with impeccable clarity by Mette........

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