By: Okoi Obono-Obla The bellicose foreign policy pursued relentlessly by the United States of America since President Donald Tr...
By: Okoi Obono-Obla
The bellicose foreign policy pursued relentlessly by the United States of America since President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2025 has seen the USA singling out certain countries for annexation, harassing them, and even suggesting the use of military options if its arsenal of gunboat diplomacy fails.
The USA has set its eyes on Canada, with President Trump suggesting that he wants to acquire Canada as the 52nd state of the Union. In response to Canada’s rejection of this desire, the USA unleashed reprisals in the form of tariffs. We also witnessed the USA’s hegemonic design of annexing Greenland in the Arctic, which recently came into the spotlight when the USA reiterated its interest in acquiring it forcefully from the Kingdom of Denmark, even hinting at the use of military action.
This compelled European leaders from the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Denmark to issue a joint statement on 6 January 2026, expressing solidarity with the Kingdom of Denmark and reaffirming their belief in international law, the principle of national sovereignty, and the territorial integrity of nations. They condemned such a brutal erosion of international law, which President Trump’s threat to annex Greenland represents.
The threat to annex Greenland from Denmark, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), raises the specter of NATO’s possible disintegration. An attack on a NATO country by another member constitutes sufficient grounds to invoke the treaty against the aggressor. Since both Denmark and the United States are NATO members, the scenario that would unfold if President Trump decides to apply the “Venezuelan option” and attack Greenland—capturing its Prime Minister—would be unprecedented. It would plunge NATO into a crisis of legitimacy, forcing member states to choose between collective defense and internal fracture.
Conclusion:
The unfolding of such a scenario would not only destabilize NATO but also undermine the very foundations of international law and global security. The Greenland question, therefore, is not merely about territorial ambition but about the survival of multilateral institutions in the face of unilateral aggression.
@ Okoi Obono-Obla
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