Donald Trump is apparently a stranger to the famous military maxim—sometimes attributed to Napoleon—“Never reinforce failure.”

The American president’s latest gambit, announced in the usual way, on Truth Social, threatens to slap tariffs on a set of European countries who have deployed small military contingents to Greenland and refused to support his stated desire to take over the Arctic island, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.

The latest Trump threat is expressed at unusual length. It mixes grievance, chest thumping, and threats, in typical Trump style.

What’s the grievance? That Denmark and all the countries of the European Union have been subsidized by the United States. No American tariffs, no remuneration for US protection (it’s a racket after all). What’s Denmark ever done for Greenland? Nothing, other than deploying “two dogsleds.” Trump likes to make fun of the Danish Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, but it is actually an elite naval unit that conducts patrols in the forbidding northern and eastern coastal regions of Greenland. It also seems that Trump has paid little attention to major boosts in Danish defence spending in 2025, including additional Arctic patrol vessels and an increase of fifteen F-35 jets for the Danish air force.

What’s the chest thumping? That only the United States, under “PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP” (yes, CAPS), can “play in this game.” The game: stopping China and Russia from taking over Greenland. There are three things, minimum, wrong with this. First, great-power competition isn’t a game. Second, and more importantly, neither Russia nor China has the military capacity or shows any intent to take over Greenland. Third, it’s an extraordinary rebuke to the concept of NATO collective security, but one we will hear more and more of, to the delight of, well, Russia and China.

What’s the threat? That the US will impose tariffs on eight European, NATO allies for the sin........

© The Walrus