Story by Alberto Nardelli, Alex Wickham and Michael Nienaber
(Bloomberg) — A group of European countries, led by the UK and Germany, is discussing plans for a military presence in Greenland to show US President Donald Trump that the continent is serious about Arctic security and to try to tamp down American threats to take over the self-ruling Danish territory.
Germany will propose setting up a joint NATO mission to protect the Arctic region, according to people familiar with the plans. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has separately urged allies to step up their security presence in the High North and recently reached out to leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to discuss the issue.
The US raid to capture the leader of Venezuela this month, as well as heightened rhetoric from the Trump administration on possibly using military force to control Greenland, has forced European leaders to quickly cobble together a strategy. They want to show that Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have the region’s security under control, as they try to undercut Trump’s argument for taking over Greenland, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.