Donald Trump’s declaration that he held a “very good” telephone call with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte about Greenland, followed by his assertion that “there can be no going back” on United States acquisition of the territory, marks one of the most legally and diplomatically combustible moments in contemporary transatlantic relations. His announcement that discussions on Greenland will take place at the World Economic Forum in Davos, coupled with the claim that Denmark is incapable of protecting the island, is not merely political theatre. It is a direct challenge to established principles of sovereignty, alliance law, collective security and the post 1945 international legal order.
This development must be analysed not as an isolated provocation, but as part of a broader pattern of strategic coercion, legal boundary testing and instrumentalisation of security narratives to justify territorial ambition. The consequences extend to NATO’s constitutional framework, the United Nations Charter, the law of self determination, the legality of economic and political coercion and the fragile legitimacy of global governance forums such as the WEF.
Trump’s public position is unambiguous. In a statement on Truth Social, he declared Greenland “imperative for National and World Security” and asserted that “everyone agrees”. He also stated that the United States would raise the matter of acquiring Greenland at Davos because Denmark “could not protect the territory”. These remarks were reinforced by his confirmation that a meeting of unspecified parties would take place during the WEF, signalling an attempt to internationalise what is, in law, a bilateral and sovereign matter concerning the Kingdom of Denmark and the people of Greenland.
From the standpoint of international law, the premise underpinning Trump’s position is fundamentally defective. Greenland is an integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a sovereign state recognised universally under international law. Its autonomous status under Danish constitutional arrangements does not diminish Danish sovereignty, nor does it create any lawful pathway for third state acquisition without Denmark’s consent and the free and genuine consent of the Greenlandic population.
Article 2(1) of the United Nations Charter enshrines the sovereign equality of states. Article 2(4) prohibits not only the use of force, but also the threat of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Modern jurisprudence, including decisions of the International Court of Justice, has consistently interpreted coercive pressure designed to secure territorial concessions as incompatible with these principles. Even absent military action, sustained economic, diplomatic or strategic pressure aimed at compelling territorial transfer risks being characterised as unlawful intervention.
Trump’s assertion that Greenland is “imperative” to global security does not create a legal exception to sovereignty. International law does not recognise strategic necessity as a basis for territorial acquisition. The last century was explicitly structured to eliminate precisely this doctrine, which underpinned the territorial expansionism of the interwar period.
Equally significant is the law of self determination. Greenland’s population possesses the right to freely determine its political status under common Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Any attempt to negotiate its transfer as a geopolitical asset, without a genuine and uncoerced referendum process initiated by Greenlanders themselves, would be legally void. A transaction concluded under external pressure would be vulnerable to invalidation under the doctrine of coercion, reflected in Article 52 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which declares treaties procured by threat or use of force to be null.
Trump’s engagement with NATO leadership adds a further layer of legal and institutional complexity. NATO is not a territorial bargaining forum. Its founding treaty, the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949, establishes collective defence obligations in Article 5 and a commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes in Article 1, which requires members to refrain from threats or use of force inconsistent with the UN Charter.
Denmark is a founding NATO member. Greenland, as Danish territory, falls under NATO’s strategic considerations. For a sitting US president to discuss acquisition of allied territory with the NATO secretary general is constitutionally and normatively anomalous. It risks placing NATO in the position of appearing to legitimise pressure against one of its own members, undermining the alliance’s internal legal coherence.
If Denmark “cannot protect the territory”, as Trump alleges, the lawful mechanism is collective defence assistance under NATO structures, not annexation or transfer. The alliance exists precisely to address territorial security deficits among members. To argue that inability to protect territory justifies its acquisition by another ally is to invert the legal logic of NATO and transform a defensive pact into a marketplace for strategic assets.
Moreover, the secretary general of NATO has no legal authority to negotiate territorial matters on behalf of any member state. Any implication that Greenland’s status could be discussed within NATO frameworks risks eroding the alliance’s neutrality in intra member sovereignty questions and could expose the organisation to unprecedented legal and political challenges.
The decision to raise the issue at the World Economic Forum compounds these concerns. The WEF is a private, non governmental platform for dialogue among political and business leaders. It has no treaty status, no mandate under international law and no competence in territorial or sovereignty matters. Attempting to broker or even normalise discussions on territorial acquisition in such a setting risks trivialising the gravity of sovereign rights and turning fundamental questions of international law into transactional diplomacy.
It also introduces a commercial dimension that is deeply problematic. If business leaders are present while the fate of a territory and its population is discussed, the line between lawful diplomatic negotiation and economic coercion becomes dangerously blurred. This is particularly acute given Trump’s previous and contemporaneous threats of punitive tariffs against European states in connection with the Greenland issue.
Such linkage would, if formalised, raise serious issues under the World Trade Organization framework, including violations of the Most Favoured Nation principle and prohibitions on discriminatory and politically motivated trade restrictions. It would also strengthen arguments that any eventual agreement was procured through economic duress.
Trump’s insistence that “everyone agrees” is contradicted by public statements from Danish authorities, European Union officials and Greenlandic representatives, all of whom have previously rejected the notion of sale or transfer. Under international law, unanimity is irrelevant in any event. Only the lawful sovereign and the people of the territory concerned possess legal agency in this matter.
From a security perspective, the claim that Greenland is essential to “world security” reflects genuine strategic realities in the Arctic, including missile defence, early warning systems and emerging maritime routes. The United States already maintains military facilities in Greenland under agreements with Denmark. These arrangements demonstrate that strategic objectives can be achieved within existing legal frameworks, without resorting to territorial acquisition.
To assert that ownership is necessary is therefore not a security argument, but a political and symbolic one. It conflates access with sovereignty and operational cooperation with territorial control, a distinction that international security law has long sought to preserve to prevent precisely the kind of destabilisation now unfolding.
The immediate consequences of this episode are already visible. Trust within NATO is strained. Denmark is placed under public pressure. Greenland’s population is treated as an object rather than a субъект of rights. The authority of international law is openly challenged. And global economic forums are repurposed as stages for territorial ambition.
The longer term implications are more severe. If territorial acquisition through strategic pressure becomes normalised, the prohibition on conquest and coercive expansion loses credibility. Other powers will draw conclusions. The legal architecture built after 1945 to prevent precisely this pattern of behaviour will appear increasingly optional rather than binding.
In legal terms, Trump’s position is untenable. In institutional terms, it is corrosive. In strategic terms, it is reckless. It transforms alliance consultation into leverage, collective defence into conditionality and sovereignty into a negotiable commodity.
As Davos convenes and global leaders gather, the issue is no longer simply whether the United States desires Greenland. The issue is whether international law, NATO’s constitutional order and the principle of sovereign equality will be defended against a narrative that treats security as a licence for acquisition.
If they are not, this episode will be remembered not as an eccentric diplomatic gambit, but as a watershed moment in the erosion of the legal restraints that have governed international relations for more than seven decades.