Ultimate litmus test': Can the EU stand up to trump over Greenland?

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00:00Let's talk to our international affairs commentator, Doug Herbert, who's joining me here on set.

00:04Doug, the UK and the rest of Europe, I mean, they're in a real bind, aren't they?

00:08Is it figures out how to respond, really, to Donald Trump's threats over Greenland?

00:14It's true, Stuart, and the reason it's a real bind is a real dilemma.

00:17There have been dilemmas before.

00:19There have been crises before in the one year since Trump returned to the White House.

00:23In that transatlantic relationship, it's become not just bumpy,

00:26it's been in grave crisis and some fear that it could collapse altogether and that NATO could go out the window, too.

00:33The question for Europe is its operating procedure, until now, its sort of default mode has been you do not confront Donald Trump.

00:41What you do is you try to appease him, you try to flatter him, you try to cajole him.

00:45You just mentioned British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

00:48We'll remember that he went famously to the White House, sat down in the Oval Office,

00:53pulled that invitation from Prince Charles out of his pocket, you know, for another state visit.

00:59That has been sort of almost the analogy for the European approach to Trump.

01:05And the question is right now, the Greenland issue, if you want a crisis, whichever word you want to use,

01:11it comes down to Europe's own sovereignty, a European member's own self-determination,

01:19its own rights, its own territorial integrity.

01:22We're not talking about some far-off, far-fetched geopolitical prospect here.

01:26And the question being, if Europe can't stand up to Trump and push back in some way, shape, or form right now,

01:34in this particular crisis, this is the ultimate litmus test, then when can it?

01:38And is the price of not pushing back at Donald Trump,

01:43that is the price of continuing this sort of Trump whisperer approach,

01:47this try to flatter him, try to get him on side, strike a nice little trade deal with him,

01:52as Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, did last summer, that deal, which is now in jeopardy.

01:59All of that, if you continue that approach, it sounds good in the short term,

02:04but might you just end up exactly where we are right now, which is why Europe is putting on the table,

02:08initially some retaliatory options, including tariffs, upwards of $107 billion, 93 billion euros,

02:16and as Emmanuel Macron put out there on the table, a weapon never before used by Europe.

02:22It's an anti-coercion measure, which would actually restrict access for U.S. companies to Europe

02:27and restrict investment as well.

02:28So, Doug, sure, to go into war with the U.S., though, what can Europe actually really do to try and put its case forward

02:35and try to advance things here?

02:36Three scenarios.

02:37So, I've been looking all over these different scenarios to try to sort of map it all out.

02:43The Jacques Delors Institute here has really boiled it down to what I think are three very standard and realistic scenarios.

02:49They seem the most plausible in varying degrees of consequences for Europe.

02:53And one of them, and we hear this a lot, is the so-called do-nothing approach, that is continue the path they've done,

02:59fold their cards, don't confront Trump at all.

03:01This is, they call it the Arctic scenario, sorry, the Arctic Munich scenario,

03:07a reference to the allies selling out the Sudetenland, the modern-day Czech Republic,

03:11to the Nazis in World War II, the Munich.

03:13So, Arctic Munich, meaning just selling Greenland to the highest bidder, in this case Donald Trump,

03:18or letting it be taken over.

03:19That would have potentially devastating consequences on Europe's credibility and on NATO,

03:24which might existentially cease to exist.

03:26There's the preventive deterrence, limited multilateral deployments of European forces in Greenland,

03:33not to fight the U.S., but to send a symbolic message that we, the Europeans, are there to do just what Trump claims to want to do,

03:39which is ensure Greenland's security against a potential threat from Russia or China.

03:43That could make it much harder, higher price for Trump to then go ahead and try to invade.

03:50Political cost, too, if Republicans in Congress and outside begin to say,

03:54yeah, this is reasonable and he should not invade.

03:57And finally, there's the confrontation option, which is the ballistic option.

04:00Unlikely to happen, but yes, a clash between U.S. and European forces,

04:05a clash which U.S. forces would likely win.

04:07And that would be a very high price for Trump to pay.

04:10And that could cause a lot of the MAGA movement to do an about-face.

04:14Europe isn't going there anywhere near yet.

04:16In fact, they're more likely to want to try to talk again to Donald Trump and not push back,

04:20not yet even with the tariffs.

04:22Doug, just finally, let's talk about Greenlanders.

04:24I mean, do they get a say in this?

04:26There have been protests, of course.

04:2860,000 or so residents.

04:30What's their say?

04:31Yeah, well, listen to this.

04:32Over the weekend, you probably saw some of those pictures.

04:36You had protests in both Greenland's capital, Nuuk,

04:39which has 20,000 of those total 60,000 residents on Greenland.

04:43Hundreds turned out, both in the capital of Greenland and also in Copenhagen.

04:48Remember Denmark, the kingdom of Denmark, Greenland's a part of it,

04:50has broad autonomy within it and all of that.

04:53But hundreds of people turning out in the capital.

04:55This is something almost never, if ever, seen on the streets of the Greenland's capital.

05:00Most people have never heard of it, right, Nuuk?

05:04But it was the scene of those protests,

05:05and it shows that there is an overwhelming part of the Greenlandish population

05:10who are dead set against the prospect of becoming part of the U.S., of a U.S. takeover.

05:16As they've said, the island, Greenland, is not for sale.

05:21And given the choice, as their prime minister and others have made clear,

05:24Greenland would choose very much to remain part of Denmark.

05:28There's been a movement over the years in favor of independence which would require a referendum.

05:33That doesn't seem to be on the table right now.

05:35The prospect of the U.S. takeover of Greenland has basically, for now at least,

05:39taken a lot of the mojo out of that any referendum or independence movement.

05:45Greenland doesn't want to be a part of the U.S.

05:46They enjoy high living standards.

05:48They have free universal education.

05:49They have free health care.

05:51One of the consequences they fear being taken over by the U.S. would be a collapse and all that.

05:54No more health care.

05:56No more free education.

05:58And perhaps less respect for their individual human rights and their self-determination.

06:02So they are right now siding with Denmark in this, as they have for decades and hundreds of years.

06:07Over the United States, they do not want to become part of the U.S.

06:10They, as one hat said in the protests in Denmark over the weekend,

06:14MAGA, make America go away.

06:16Doug, thanks very much.

06:17Doug Herbert, our international affairs commentator here on France 24.

06:20It's Doug Girt, we're speaking.

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