The crisis of allegiance with NATO caused by US President Donald Trump’s insistence that the United States should take control of Greenland appears to have dissipated – at least for now – in the aftermath of the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) summit, held in Davos, Switzerland, from 19 to 23 January.
In addressing the Davos Summit on 21 January while still pushing his plan for the United States to acquire Greenland, Trump acknowledged that he would not pursue the acquisition of Greenland by force. However, appearing to finally realise that the United States’ NATO allies were finally prepared to take a unified stand against his demands, Trump on 21 January withdrew his threat to impose tariffs on several nations who refused to acquiesce to his plans.
Later posting on his Truth Social media site, and appearing to walk back his plans, Trump said he had agreed with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on a “framework of a future deal” on Arctic security and said that “additional discussions” on Greenland would be held.
No further details on that potential deal emerged from Trump or anyone else at Davos, but in reality it is unlikely to be substantially different from the accord with Denmark regarding Greenland that the United States already has. In 1951 the two countries signed a defence agreement in relation to the territory allowing the US government “to improve and generally to fit the area for military use” and to “construct, install, maintain, and operate facilities and equipment” there. While there are currently only around 150 US military personnel stationed in Greenland, at Pituffik Space Base, under the agreement with Denmark there is no effectively no limit to the number of US military personnel that can be deployed there. There would theoretically therefore be no barrier to the US military developing military facilities on Greenland in support of the US ‘Golden Dome’ missile defence programme, for example.
The atmosphere at Davos – and indeed the growing willingness of NATO allies to stand up against the Trump Administration – was substantially set in a speech by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the summit on 20 January: an address that will likely be recognised as one of the best international political speeches of modern times. Talking about “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality”, Carney argued that intermediate powers are not powerless.
“It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must,” said Carney. “And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety. Well, it won’t.”
Without mentioning Trump and his tariff threats, Carney noted that “great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”
Asserting that “when the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself”, Carney acknowledged that “A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable,” and that therefore that “Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortresses.”
Carney said that Canada is therefore being “both principled and pragmatic … engaging broadly, strategically with open eyes”.
“To help solve global problems, we’re pursuing variable geometry, in other words, different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests,” said Carney. “So on Ukraine we’re a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per capita contributors to its defence and security. On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark, and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future.
In one of his speech’s key lines, Carney warned that “the middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu”.
The United States’ NATO allies at Davos were also spurred by the appearance of California Governor Gavin Newsom: a self-appointed Trump baiter and potential future Democratic presidential candidate. Speaking at Davos on 20 January, Newsom urged European political leaders to “stop being complicit” and “have a backbone”. Newson said Europe’s leaders “should decide for themselves what to do, but one thing they can’t do is what they’ve been doing”, adding that, with regard to Trump, you either “mate with him or he devours you”.
European resolve to stand up to Trump was no doubt additionally emboldened by Trump’s wilfully ignorant insulting of the United States’ NATO allies.
In his Davos speech, while also lambasting the audience with inaccurate claims about the success of his administration, how the United States “gave Greenland back to Denmark” after the Second World War and false statements about Denmark’s financial commitment to the security of Greenland, Trump claimed the United States had “gotten absolutely nothing in return” from its commitment to NATO. He also claimed that, with regard to its NATO allies, if the United States were attacked “I don’t know that they’d be there for us”.
That claim drew a forceful rebuke from the NATO Secretary General – who has formerly been overtly diplomatic in Trump’s presence – during a meeting between him and Trump on the sidelines at Davos. “There’s one thing I heard you say yesterday and today,” said Rutte. “You were not absolutely sure Europeans would come to the rescue of the US if you will be attacked. Let me tell you: they will, and they did – in Afghanistan. For every two Americans who paid the ultimate price, there was one soldier from another NATO country who did not come back to his family.”
Speaking to Fox News on Thursday on 22 January, Trump claimed of the United States’ NATO allies, “We’ve never needed them. … They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan … and they did; they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines.”
That comment lit the blue touch paper on a wave of anger and condemnation virtually Europe wide. Even UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who along with Rutte has previously trod lightly in his dealings with Trump, stated on 23 January that the US president’s comments were “insulting and frankly appalling”.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, which came in response to the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, remains the only time that NATO’s Article 5 mutual security clause, in which an armed attack against one ally shall be considered an attack against all NATO allies, has been invoked.
In the Afghanistan campaign there were 3,621 deaths among the coalition forces involved. Of those, 457 were UK service personnel: the second greatest loss in terms of numbers after the US loss of 2,461 personnel.
The deaths among Danish military personnel who served in Afghanistan – 43 – stands as the second greatest loss of life in terms of deaths per million of the national population.
In total, 1,160 personnel from US allies died in the Afghanistan campaign.
