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While US President Donald Trump continues to threaten annexation Greenlandexperts warn about the future NATO (NATO) — of which Canada is a member — is in question.
Hours before the foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark were due to meet with top US officials at the White House on Wednesday, Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social to assert US control of the island.
“NATO becomes far more powerful and effective with Greenland in US hands,” Trump wrote. “Anything less than that is unacceptable.”
Greenland is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, which is a member of the NATO military alliance. Last week, Trump hinted at potential action.
“If we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way,” he said.
Article 5 is one of the fundamental principles of the 76-year-old military alliance and states that “an armed attack on one NATO member will be considered an attack on all members and triggers the obligation of each member to come to its aid.”
The only time this article was ever referenced was after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
The alliance has never dealt with one member attacking another.
“While NATO has survived tensions between its members in the past, there is no precedent for an actual internal attack,” said Nicole Covey, a fellow at the Canadian Institute of Global Affairs.
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“After all, there is an established norm that allies should not attack each other if they want to maintain any kind of positive relationship,” she added.
The alliance would be unlikely to survive if the US, the de facto leader of the alliance, attacked another member, said Gaëlle Rivard-Piché, executive director of the CDA Institute.
“I think it will be the end of the alliance if the United States attacks a NATO ally. I don’t see how the alliance would survive such an event. I don’t foresee a military invasion, but who knows, right?” she said.
Since Trump stepped up his rhetoric, several NATO allies, including Canada, have backed Denmark and Greenland, and some European countries on Wednesday announced they are sending troops to Greenland to strengthen Arctic security.
Although Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Governor General Mary Simon will visit at an undisclosed date, it is unclear at this time whether Canadian troops may be part of the effort.
Global News reached out to the Canadian Forces.
But Carney recently noted that NATO can provide security for Danish territory as the alliance does for all members.
“We are partners in NATO. It is a mutual defense alliance. We can provide that security. As NATO, we can provide security for all of NATO, including Greenland,” Prime Minister Carney he told reporters at the Canadian Embassy in Paris last week.
“Greenland’s future is solely Greenland’s and Denmark’s decision – it’s their decision.”
The response from the leaders of both NATO and the EU is “expected,” Covey said.
“The United States is threatening Greenland and it would undermine the credibility of the EU and NATO leadership if they do not openly support Greenland,” she said.
However, member states must also walk a tightrope not to offend Trump, Rivard-Piché said.
“It’s a stick and a carrot, but their stick is not very big,” she said, adding that the US still accounts for the largest single share of NATO’s budget.
According to Atlantic CouncilThe US spends $928 billion on its defense budget, almost twice as much as Europe and Canada combined.
For Canada and its allies, years of reliance on the U.S. have weakened their own defense capabilities for a scenario like this, Rivard-Piché said.
“It was a valid criticism of Canada and the fact that we just haven’t invested as much in defense over the last few decades, but now we have to step up,” she said.
In June, Canada joined other NATO countries in pledging five percent of its budget for defense spending by 2035. Much of that will likely go toward strengthening Canada’s Arctic capabilities, Rivard-Piché said.
“We’re investing in our technology capabilities to increase our situational awareness across all domains from the seabed to space. We’re investing in advanced technology and underwater technology so we can actually monitor the region and know what’s going on,” she said.
Denmark said Trump’s claims about immediate threats to Greenland from Russia and China were not true.
“To say that the region is teeming with Chinese and Russian ships simply does not reflect reality,” Rivard-Piché said.
The possibility of a military conflict in Greenland is “extremely small” but “not zero,” Covey said.
“Rationally, a military conflict in Greenland between NATO allies should be unthinkable, but the Trump administration has already shown that they are prepared to act in unpredictable ways,” she said.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
