NATO chief’s Greenland deal with Trump blindsides European allies

DAVOS, Switzerland — A deal on Greenland that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte negotiated with President Donald Trump blindsided European officers who had striven to point out unity within the face of escalating threats from the U.S., a European diplomat with information of ongoing discussions instructed MS NOW.

“Rutte negotiated this on his own,” the diplomat instructed MS NOW on Friday, referring to the settlement mentioned by the NATO secretary normal and President Donald Trump on the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“Everyone is grateful to Mark Rutte for pulling this off, but there are big question marks over what was agreed,” a second European diplomat instructed MS NOW. “Security and defense fall under Rutte’s remit … but issues of economics and sovereignty don’t.” The sources had been granted anonymity to talk freely about delicate relations.

Trump introduced on Wednesday that he and Rutte had reached “the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland,” and that he would not impose the punitive tariffs he had threatened towards European nations that opposed his Greenland takeover. Those had been set to take impact on Feb. 1.

But days after the announcement, prime European officers are nonetheless unclear about what Trump and Rutte agreed to.

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A Danish official instructed MS NOW that Trump and Rutte agreed that Denmark and the U.S. “will begin talking.”

“It’s now a discussion between the two countries,” mentioned the official, including that Rutte or NATO allies might be introduced in “when necessary.”

“We are very well underway in terms of setting up a structure, a time frame, who is in them and when they’re going to meet — that channel is being decided,” the official continued.

“The agreement we’ve made with the Americans is that we won’t be commenting on what’s going on in the room,” the official mentioned.

In a press release, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly instructed MS NOW, “If this deal goes through, and President Trump is very hopeful it will, the United States will be achieving all of its strategic goals with respect to Greenland, at very little cost, forever. President Trump is proving once again he’s the Dealmaker in Chief. As details are finalized by all parties involved, they will be released accordingly.”

In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Trump mentioned the doable deal includes U.S. entry to mineral rights, in addition to collaboration on his proposed “Golden Dome” protection system.

Rutte mentioned he had not raised the difficulty of Danish sovereignty over Greenland in his discussions with Trump.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen mentioned on Thursday that Denmark might negotiate on nearly any difficulty however that “we cannot negotiate on our sovereignty.” Greenland’s premier, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, mentioned he didn’t know what was within the proposed deal.

Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, instructed reporters that the alliance had no prior information of the deal being struck.

“We had no discussion about that security framework; we found out about it when everyone else did,” he mentioned.

While European Union officers had been relieved to see Trump again away from his threats to impose 10% tariffs on international locations that didn’t help his plans to regulate Greenland, one official expressed concern that Trump’s settlement with Rutte was finally “the best way to divide us,” significantly after EU international locations stood united in opposing the president’s calls for in Davos.

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Rutte and Trump have loved a cordial working relationship — some have even referred to as it a “bromance” — relationship again to Trump’s first time period, when Rutte was nonetheless serving as prime minister of the Netherlands.

Just two weeks after the 2024 election, Rutte, then just lately named NATO secretary normal, met President-elect Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort and sought to harness the respect and a spotlight of the person who months earlier had mentioned that he would “encourage [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want” if NATO international locations didn’t spend extra on their army defenses.

Seven months after that Palm Beach assembly, Rutte would go on to publicly discuss with Trump as “Daddy,” inviting criticism for his overt flattery — a second that the president referred to often afterward, together with in his speech on the World Economic Forum on Wednesday.

Some EU officers stay skeptical that the Greenland difficulty has been resolved.

The second European diplomat who spoke with MS NOW mentioned that “the Danes are still stressed” about Trump’s threats to grab Greenland, noting that although he appeared to again down, he often adjustments his thoughts. “Who can believe him?”

“He hasn’t given up on his ambitions to take Greenland,” the diplomat mentioned. “His promises don’t mean anything.”

On his method again from Davos, Trump mentioned that “we have to have the ability to do exactly what we want to do” on Greenland.

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s overseas coverage chief, addressed the local weather of uncertainty at an emergency summit on Thursday in Brussels, saying that regardless of a dedication to continued cooperation with the U.S., transatlantic relations have “taken a big blow over the last week.”

“One day, one way; the other day, again, everything could change,” she mentioned.

Ian Sherwood

Ian Sherwood is the director of worldwide newsgathering for MS NOW, a former govt editor for NBC News and a former deputy Washington bureau chief for the BBC.