President Donald Trump said on Tuesday there was “no going back” on his goal to control Greenland, refusing to rule out taking the Arctic island by force and rounding on allies as European leaders struggled to respond.

Trump’s ambition – spelled out in social media posts and mock-up AI images – to wrest sovereignty over Greenland from fellow NATO member Denmark has threatened to blow apart the alliance that has underpinned Western security for decades.

It has also threatened to reignite a trade war with Europe that rattled markets and companies for months last year, though Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed back against what he called “hysteria” over Greenland.

“As I expressed to everyone, very plainly, Greenland is imperative for National and World Security. There can be no going back — On that, everyone agrees!” Trump said after speaking to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

To drive home the message, Trump posted an AI image of himself in Greenland, holding a U.S. flag. Another showed him speaking to leaders next to a map showing Canada and Greenland as part of the United States.

Separately, he leaked messages including from French President Emmanuel Macron, who questioned what Trump was “doing on Greenland”. Trump, who has vowed to impose tariffs on countries that stood in his way, had earlier threatened to hammer French wines and champagnes with a 200% tariff.

Danish PM Strikes Defiant Tone on Greenland

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she would not yield to Trump’s demands.

“I am certainly not going to abandon Greenland, I made that decision a long time ago as Danish prime minister,” she told reporters in Copenhagen.

“The American president has unfortunately not ruled out the use of military force. And therefore the rest of us cannot rule it out either, so it is a natural consequence of what the American president has said and has not said,” she added.

An agreement on sharing responsibility for the security of the Arctic and the North Atlantic could offer a way out of the stand-off, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told Reuters at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

Also speaking in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his country strongly opposed the imposition of any U.S. tariffs linked to the Greenland issue.

European leaders took to the stage in Davos attempting to project the continent’s strength, though it was not immediately clear how the European Union will eventually respond.

Macron said the EU should not bend to “the law of the strongest”.

“We do believe that we need more growth, we need more stability in this world, but we do prefer respect to bullies,” Macron told the meeting in Davos, which Trump is due to attend this week.

Some spoke of the importance of reducing European dependence for security on the United States. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described a “seismic change” that made it necessary to build a “new form of European independence”.

The EU has threatened to hit back against the U.S. with trade measures. One option is a package of tariffs on 93 billion euros ($109 billion) of U.S. imports that could automatically kick in on February 6 after a six-month suspension.

Another option is the “Anti-Coercion Instrument” (ACI), known informally as the EU’s “trade bazooka”, which allows tough measures against countries that try to use trade to influence European policy. It has never yet been used, but Macron, who has raised the prospect of invoking it, insisted again on Tuesday that it was on the table.

It could limit access to public tenders, investments or banking activity, or restrict trade in services, the sector in which the U.S. has a surplus with the bloc, including the lucrative digital services provided by U.S. tech giants.

Treasury Secretary Bessent, also speaking at the Davos gathering of the world’s political and business elite, said a solution would be found that ensures national security for the United States and Europe.

“It’s been 48 hours. As I said, sit back, relax,” he said. “I am confident that the leaders will not escalate and that this will work out in a manner that ends up in a very good place for all.”

Russia Questions Danish Sovereignty Over Greenland

The foreign minister of Russia, which has been watching with glee as Trump’s drive to acquire Greenland widens splits with Europe, said that “Greenland is not a natural part of Denmark” and also denied that Moscow had any designs on the island.

“It was neither a natural part of Norway nor a natural part of Denmark,” Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.

“It is a colonial conquest. The fact that the inhabitants are now accustomed to it and feel comfortable is another matter.”

Trump’s renewed tariff threats against European allies have revived talk of the ‘Sell America’ trade that emerged in the aftermath of his sweeping levies last April.

Wall Street’s main indexes opened sharply lower on Tuesday. In a sign of global risk aversion, gold prices touched record highs, stocks across the world slid and U.S. Treasuries were sold off.

($1 = 0.8530 euros)

—

(Reporting Michel Rose, Stine Jacobsen, Terje Solsvik, Francesco Canepa, Emma Farge, Inti Landauro, Soren Jeppesen, Terje Solsvik, Paritosh Bansal, Nandita Bose, Bo Erickson, Dave Graham and Bhargav Acharya; writing by Matthias Williams and Keith WeirEditing by Gareth Jones)