The fact that he’s busy with Iran is half the reason this is happening. Trump needs a win and probably reckons that he can quickly drive a tit-for-tat escalation over Greenland oil rights in time for the US midterm elections. Right now, his approval ratings are in the toilet, even to a certain extent with voters who have voted for him before… and it’s not because his voters disapprove of his law enforcement policies or because of his being all over the Epstein files. It’s because right now he’s demonstrating major weakness in Iran. He looks weak, and that’s the one thing he can’t afford to be seen to be.

My point is that he obviously sees Greenland as a quick win. He has some basis for this opinion: Europe is currently hopelessly dependent on the USA for our security. We’re working on fixing that, but aside from a few exceptions, we’ve only been working on it for a few years; we haven’t spent decades preparing for a “what if the USA tries to fuck us?” scenario the way Iran has. The USA is busy with Iran, but we’re busy with Russia in a way that the USA simply isn’t. Right now the EU has Russia sniffing around its eastern border, and a sudden US rug-pull could be disastrous. Both sides are aware of that, which is why the EU has been trying de-escalation so far.

Trump, like Putin, will keep pushing for as long as he’s allowed - but the solution of “stand up to him” only works if we can follow through. You don’t pull a gun if you’re not willing to fire it. Acting tough now and then quickly capitulating later wouldn’t help, so the key question is “if we push back and Trump doesn’t back down, can we put our money where our mouth is? How far are we willing to go with this if it turns into brinksmanship?”. I honestly don’t know what the answer to that question is, but European strategists are better briefed on the logistics of the situation than I am, so hopefully they do, and react accordingly. I suspect that the European response will be subtle but firm, moving JUST ENOUGH resources into Greenland’s vicinity to let Trump know that if he DOES try something, it would get messy and wouldn’t be over quickly enough to give him the quick boost he’s looking for.