Inside Trump’s Head-Spinning Greenland U-Turn

After a meeting with Rutte on Wednesday, Trump called off promised tariffs on European nations, contending that he had “formed the framework of a future deal” with respect to the largest island in the world.

The exact contours of the framework are still in flux, but negotiations are expected to center on several areas, according to officials in Europe familiar with the discussions. They include a potential U.S. agreement with Denmark about stationing forces at bases in Greenland and expanded European efforts to boost security around the Arctic. The U.S. could receive a right of first refusal on investments in Greenland’s mineral resources—a veto aimed at preventing Russia and China from tapping the island’s wealth—and in exchange Trump would take tariff threats off the table, the officials said.

Speaking to reporters, Trump called the framework “really fantastic,” but offered few details. He said he assumes Denmark, which controls Greenland, had been informed about the potential deal.

The White House declined to comment on the details of the proposed framework and a Trump administration official said the scope of the negotiations hadn’t been set in stone. “If this deal goes through, and President Trump is very hopeful it will, the United States will be achieving all of its strategic goals with respect to Greenland, at very little cost, forever,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

There were early signals on Wednesday that Trump was open to a deal. During an hourlong speech at the World Economic Forum, the U.S. president said he wouldn’t deploy the military to take control of Greenland.

It was a stark shift in tone for Trump, who just days earlier had declined to rule out using the military to secure ownership of Greenland and posted an image online of the territory with an American flag plastered across it.

The pivot was a welcome relief to European leaders, who faced the prospect of economy-rattling tariffs and a standoff with Trump that could have threatened the stability of NATO. Last weekend, Trump said he would hit eight nations with 10% tariffs starting next month if a deal wasn’t reached to acquire Greenland. The tariffs would increase to 25% in June.

In a Truth Social post Wednesday night, Trump said he would hold off on the tariffs so that his top advisers—Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff—could negotiate a deal on Greenland.

“The day is ending on a better note than it began,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said.

Some of Trump’s own advisers had privately harbored concerns that the president’s harsh rhetoric had made it harder to strike a deal with Denmark. In recent days, administration officials have discussed compromise proposals that would give the U.S. access to minerals and land for military bases, a Trump administration official said. Some outside allies of the president were concerned Tuesday after stocks fell sharply following Trump’s Greenland-related tariff threats.

U.S. and European officials drew conflicting lessons from the Greenland episode. 

U.S. officials argued that Trump’s aggressive posture had forced European officials to the negotiating table after they had for months refused to indulge the president’s campaign to take control of Greenland. European officials contended that maintaining a united front of opposition could help convince Trump to reach a deal that fell short of acquiring the territory.

Trump and Rutte on Wednesday “discussed the critical significance of security in the Arctic region” to the U.S. and other NATO members, according to an alliance spokesman. Talks about the proposed framework will focus on how NATO members can work together to ensure Arctic security, the spokesman said. More-specific negotiations between Denmark, Greenland and the U.S. will aim to ensure “that Russia and China never gain a foothold—economically or militarily—in Greenland,” the spokesman said.

Rutte has drawn mockery for his sometimes-fawning approach to Trump. At NATO’s summit in June, he referred to the president as “daddy” and has repeatedly lavished praise on him. But Trump and Rutte have built a strong working relationship, U.S. and European officials said.

In his speech earlier Wednesday, Trump delivered pointed criticism of longtime U.S. allies as representatives from those countries looked on. He described Europe as unrecognizable from an earlier era and headed in the wrong direction. He rebuked Denmark as ungrateful. He said Switzerland wouldn’t have a country if not for the support of the U.S. And he mocked French President Emmanuel Macron for wearing aviator sunglasses at the event.

But Trump also sought to de-escalate, calling for immediate negotiations to discuss the U.S. bid to acquire Greenland. “I don’t have to use force,” he said. “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”

Trump suggested that NATO members have an obligation to support the U.S. acquisition of Greenland because of America’s central role in bolstering the trans-Atlantic alliance. “We give so much, and we get so little in return,” he said.

“We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” Trump said of his desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no, and we will remember.”

Trump was met with a muted response from the room of global elites that packed the main conference hall for his speech, drawing some light applause but also many blank stares and spurts of nervous laughter as he made some of his most-strident claims.

Leaders of the European Union’s 27 countries are set to meet in Brussels on Thursday evening for a hastily organized summit. While they no longer need an immediate game plan for a trade war, they now must assess battered trans-Atlantic relations.

Europeans had been seeking ways to bolster Arctic security while showing Trump that they aren’t ceding Greenland. France on Wednesday proposed extending Danish-led multinational military exercises now ongoing in Greenland.

Trump’s advisers said he had been emboldened by the U.S. operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. In the aftermath of the raid, Trump has put renewed emphasis on his efforts to exert control over the Western Hemisphere.

Trump’s Greenland ambitions triggered an unprecedented diplomatic crisis for the U.S.’s closest NATO allies, who are already grappling with Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and geopolitical competition with China. Some of Washington’s closest historic allies have questioned how much longer they can count on the U.S.

“Every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great-power rivalry,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said during a speech at Davos earlier this week. “That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”

In Davos, those tensions were at times on display behind the scenes.

Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, walked out of a Tuesday dinner during a speech by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in what some attendees viewed as a sign of mounting tensions in trans-Atlantic relations. Lutnick, addressing an invitation-only dinner of VIP guests, blasted Europe’s energy policies and criticized what he described as the continent’s declining competitiveness on the world stage, according to people who attended.

Some guests at the dinner applauded Lutnick’s remarks highlighting the U.S.’s power in comparison with Europe, and others booed, attendees said. “We have no comment to add,” an ECB spokesperson said by email Wednesday morning. A Commerce Department spokesperson said that “during Secretary Lutnick’s three-minute speech, no one left hastily. Only one person booed, and it was Al Gore.” Gore, the former U.S. vice president, responded by saying that he listened to Lutnick’s speech and “didn’t interrupt him in any way.”