There are rational explanations for the continent’s muted response to Donald Trump’s threats – but that’s not how you deal with this president

Donald Trump’s antics over the past week have put paid to the refrain, often heard in Europe, that the president should be taken “seriously but not literally”. It turns out that Trump literally wants Greenland. He doubled down on his aggressive rhetoric in a raging 45-minute call with the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, a few days ago, threatening crippling tariffs unless she agreed to sell the autonomous territory to the US. In response to Denmark’s sharp increase in military spending for the Arctic, including ships and drones, he derided Copenhagen’s “dog-sled” defences for Greenland, the world’s largest non-continental island, which pale in comparison with the strength of the US military base there.

The threat to take over the territory of a European country by force is something that Europeans now know all too well. Russia has repeatedly threatened east European countries, making good on those threats by invading Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine since 2014. Yet many Europeans are gobsmacked that such a threat is now coming from its greatest ally.