4 spicy quotes on Greenland

This Greenland story keeps (d)evolving, so here are the top four quotes you should know:

1. “On Greenland, the right way to approach an issue of this seriousness is through calm discussion between allies” — Sir Keir Starmer, UK Prime Minister 

Off-ramps. Dialogue. Closed doors. That’s Starmer’s approach to Trump 2.0, and reportedly produced a Trump concession that the US leader might’ve gotten “bad information” about NATO’s Greenland exercises, after Starmer insisted these were just a response to Trump’s Arctic concerns. That’s the closest to de-escalation we’ve seen.

But as for the Danish owners of Greenland? Foreign Minister Rasmussen emerged from closed-door talks with his US counterpart (Rubio) and VP Vance last week, dragging deeply on a carpark ciggie before noting it's clear Trump has a “wish of conquering Greenland”. The shocked Danes are now ditching this week’s Davos (where Trump is due).

2. “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace” — Donald J. Trump, US President 

Imagine getting that text from the US president. Trump fired it off to Norway’s PM after the Norwegians and Finns proposed a call to de-escalate. The phone call idea might’ve landed better if coming directly from Finland’s Stubb (who Trump famously likes).

Still, the short exchange purports to spell out both Trump’s end-game (“Complete and Total Control of Greenland”) and justifications: a) this Nobel snub, b) protect Greenland from China and Russia, c) questioning Denmark’s legal ownership, and d) NATO owes us.

So how are others responding to all this…?

3. "We simply want to try to resolve this problem together, and the American government knows that we could also retaliate" — Friedrich Merz, German Chancellor 

The US holds more cards, but the Europeans can inflict pain — we saw that in the anti-coercion package they cooked up (then shelved) amid last year’s US-EU trade talks: this could again target Trump’s base, whether via the tech broligarchs or products like Harley-Davidsons and bourbon (Jim Beam halted output at its main Kentucky site last month).

But we’re already seeing the risks for Europe, too — Germany’s Merz is reportedly wary of pulling that particular trigger given Germany’s own export exposure to the US.

Meanwhile, a top Deutsche Bank exec has flagged the possibility of Europe retaliating by selling its US stocks and bonds, though most of those assets are in private funds.

As for China…?

4. “We urge the US side to stop using the so-called ‘China threat’ as a pretext to pursue selfish gains” — China’s foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun

It was Napoleon (not Sun Tzu) who famously quipped to “never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”, but it seems Mr Guo just couldn’t help himself.