Donald Trump’s attempted Greenland grab has driven a wedge between the US president and some of his ideological allies in Europe, as previously unstinting enthusiasm and admiration collides with one of the far right’s key tenets: national sovereignty.
Trump’s subsequent disparaging remark that Nato allies’ troops “stayed a little off the frontlines” while fighting with US forces in Afghanistan has only deepened the divide, piquing far-right patriotic sentiments and prompting an avalanche of criticism.
The US president last week stepped away from his drive to seize Greenland, pledging he would not take it by force or impose tariffs on nations opposing him. Faced with a fierce backlash, he also appeared to walk back his swipe at non-US Nato troops.
But for radical-right populists – who lead or support governments in a third of the EU’s member states, are vying for power in others, and who saw in Trump a powerful ally for their nation-first, anti-immigration, EU-critical cause – he is increasingly a liability.
View image in fullscreen Crowds outside the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, in January in protest against Trump’s policy towards
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