I While the US intervention in Venezuela may have taken the headlines this week, a number of positive developments for Ukraine also took place that will – while not delivering peace in the near-term – likely push the medium-term trajectory of the war with Russia in its favor.
Ukrainian president Zelensky, European leaders and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met early in the week in Paris, and for the first time produced more concrete decisions on the European provision of security guarantees to Ukraine after a ceasefire/peace agreement comes into force. The Coalition of the Willing Declaration includes commitments to provide European troops – including from European nuclear nations France and the U.K. – for a multinational monitoring force to be placed in Ukraine, commitments to continue ongoing military support for Ukraine, US support for monitoring and verification of a ceasefire, and binding commitments to assist Ukraine that “may include the use of military capabilities, intelligence and logistical support, diplomatic initiatives, adoption of additional sanctions.” Virtually all European states, plus Ukraine and Canada were represented in Paris at the head of state/government level, making this declaration a more significant political declaration, especially since it comes shortly after the EU decision to provide €90bn in additional financial assistance to Ukraine, enabling the EU to pay for the promised future budget and military assistance.
Crucially, the United States were only represented in Paris by Trump’s personal enjoys and neither Witkoff or Kushner put their signatures to anything, making any U.S. commitment contemplated in Paris entirely resting on the future decisions of President Trump (and Congress), so nothing agreed in Paris has any likely near-term positive effect on bringing about a ceasefire. In fact, the effect is likely to be the opposite, as several of the items – noticeably NATO country troops stationed in Ukraine and ongoing long-term military support to Ukraine – are repeated red lines for Russia, ensuring that Moscow will reject what was decided in Paris even before the talks move to the treacherous issue of Donbas territory. Peace is hence further away than before, as Ukraine and Europe – with the Trump Administration condoning it – has agreed to something Putin simply will not accept.
This outcome, however, is likely what Ukraine and European leaders will actually have sought from the meeting, which really was not aimed at promoting peace in the short-term per se, but rather seek to draw the Trump Administration closer to the Ukrainian/European position on what an acceptable ceasefire/peace plan might look like. In this, Zelensky and European leaders seemingly succeeded. This in the thinking of the leaders present in Paris will possibly set the stage for a gradual realization by President Trump that if he is to achieve any peace between Russia and Ukraine, he will have to put more pressure on Vladimir Putin to get him to agree.
Importantly, US actions in Venezuela points to a gradual and indirect set of policies by the Trump Administration that – while not implemented to support Ukraine – will have the effect over time to hurt Russia politically and financially. First of all, it is evident that the US capture of a Russian economic and political ally in Nicolas Maduro is, like the fall of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria last year, a slap in the face of Vladimir Putin’s “great power aspirations”. There was evidently nothing Russia could do to assist their principal ally in Latin America, and Russian weapons greatly underperformed again. This weakens Putin domestically in Russia, as the costs of the invasion of Ukraine becomes clearer also for Russians, including the ultra-nationalist groups strongly supporting it. Secondly, the US boarding several suddenly Russian flagged shadow fleet tankers marks both another political, but more importantly economic setback for Russia. Again, Russia could do nothing to shield these ships from US seizure and the possible trial in the United States of crew members will be a major political embarrassment to Putin (expect Russia to arrest/kidnap American citizens soon to set up de facto a “PoW exchange”). Seeing US authorities take over Russian flagged ships also undermines the general notion inside Russia that Donald Trump is favorably disposed toward it, again helping to sow concern about the long-term Russian prospects in the war in Ukraine.
More importantly, the US willingness to take this action against Russian flagged vessels may encourage other NATO members to do the same, with the possible implication that many more shadow fleet tankers will be boarded in for instance the Baltic Sea, at a minimum further driving up the cost for Russia to keep exporting crude oil from its Baltic Sea export ports. Combined with the Trump Administration’s goal of bringing more Venezuelan oil to global markets (and possibly seek to achieve Donald Trumps stated preference of an oil price of $50/barrel), which if successfully implemented, should put downward pressure on global oil prices, this has the effect of potentially significantly further cutting into Russian oil export earnings. This would hurt Moscow’s ability to keep financing its war effort in the medium-term.
Lastly, Trump’s decision to green-light the long-stalled Graham-Blumenthal Russia Oil Sanctions Bill, enabling Trump to put up to 500 percent U.S. tariffs on goods imported from countries that buy Russian oil, further strengthens the impression that Trump is taking an at least less favorable policy position towards Russia in the conflict. The decision to allow the Bill to come to a vote now seems likely to be related to the Supreme Courts imminent decision on IEEPA tariffs (possibly tomorrow), as this bill could hand Trump a potential new legal avenue to levy tariffs in a potentially relatively unconstrained manner. Hence, this decision might be interpreted as a preemptive response to a possible setback for the Administration on IEEPA, which could have an unpredictable impact on US tariffs going forward. This though doesn’t change the fact that viewed from Kyiv’s perspective, this was another positive development.
In sum therefore, while this week has had no impact on short term peace prospects, it has been a constructive week for Ukraine, as European leaders have pledged continued military aid and troops for the post-ware period and Donald Trump has taken a number of policy steps arising from his Venezuela intervention that hurts Russia’s long-term interests.
II Also related to the Venezuela operation has been the renewed focus by the Trump Administration on Greenland. With full disclosure here, as I am a Danish citizen and was formerly military officer in the Danish army and hence has a degree of “emotional attachment” to this issue, I shall refrain from commenting on the actions or motivations of the Trump Administration. Instead, I will focus on the response strategy adopted by the Danish and Greenland governments, and why I believe it will be successful in ultimately defusing the “Greenland situation”, causing it to become just a(nother) distraction.
Starting in the first Trump Administration, the Danish and Greenlandish strategy was to try to ignore Trump’s comments about Greenland in the hope that eventually he would move on to other policy topics. Until last week, this was seemingly a successful strategy. However, once Donald Trump and very senior members of the Administration, like Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, started again to make explicit comments about the “U.S. need to own Greenland” and refusing to rule out a military solution to achieve this outcome, the strategy had change. Instead in recent days, the Danish and Greenland Prime Ministers have spoken out and explicitly laid out that the Trump Administration’s comments are unacceptable, that Greenland’s sovereign status cannot be questioned, and that it is not for sale. Importantly, Denmark and Greenland has gotten the full support of other European leaders in making the basic point that nothing in Greenland can be decided unless by the Greenlanders themselves and Denmark, and that any US military action in Greenland would mean the de facto end of NATO once the principal member militarily attacked the territory of another member.
This strategy is essentially an attempt to speak not to the Administration or President Trump, who has repeatedly let it be known that his attachment to NATO is on a “quid pro quo basis”, but instead to the U.S. Congress. The hope is here that there in Congress remains a majority able and not least willing to eventually rein in Trump’s designs on Greenland. The Senate vote today to advance the War Powers Act on Venezuela to explicitly require Congressional approval for further U.S. military actions in the country and the possible extension or amendment to it, to include an explicit ban on also any military action towards Greenland not authorized by Congress, is an early test of the success of this strategy. More broadly, based on recent statements from also GOP senators and other Republican Congressional leaders, the strategy to engage Congress by highlighting the threat to NATO appears to have been reasonably successful. It is unlikely to make Trump or senior members of his Administration stop talking about Greenland, but it does push an explicit military attack into the realm of the essentially impossible. Congress seems certain to act, if the Executive Branch were to move towards issuing such an order by explicitly making it illegal, restating their monopoly on declaring wars on in this case at least a Treaty ally of the United States. This in turn would make it illegal for the US military to actually implement a Trump’s order to invade Greenland. This is simply not going to happen, as also reflected by the fact that today’s YouGov Poll showed only 8 percent of Americans would support “using military force to take control of Greenland”, while 73 percent would oppose. It is an extremely unpopular idea among Americans, which matters in a US election year.
The alternative strategy of seeking to “buy Greenland”, which Secretary Rubio has stated is the preferred Administration option and will likely be discussed at a scheduled meeting between him and Danish and Greenlandish representatives next week, offers some diplomatic negotiating space, but is for several reasons essentially certain to also fail. First of all, it is unlikely that Greenlanders look kindly on being treated as a commodity to be bought. Which matters, as a referendum on independence from Denmark would have to precede any acceptance of a U.S. offer. A 2025 poll in Greenland showed only 6 percent of Greenlanders “wanted to leave Denmark and become a part of the United States”. Secondly, in terms of healthcare coverage (universal and free vs. “don’t get sick”), university tuition (free + monthy government stipend vs. thousands of $), paid parental leave (~52weeks vs. zero federally), paid holidays (5-6weeks paid vs. ?) and almost any other social policy indicator available, the currently available Danish system is often vastly superior to what populations in other overseas U.S. territories have access to today. Current poverty rates in Greenland are similarly far lower than in American Samoa, U.S. Virgin islands, Puerto Rico or Guam, and median incomes higher, too. As such, an “offer to join the United States” might not be as generous in the eyes of Greenlanders as the Trump Administration thinks.
It is possible that an offer to join the United States instead would come with such large offers of public and private investments that Greenlanders would go for it, despite the risks of lower social services. Yet, this is a very unlikely outcome, as it would require the Congressionally approved and funded offer to be very generous upfront and certainly amount to hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars per Greenland resident. Given that YouGov polling also shows that 45 percent of Americans today oppose purchasing Greenland, and only 28 percent support it, it seems extremely unlikely that any truly generous offer to Greenlanders could pass Congress in an election year, where the cost of living for Americans is already a major political issue.
Consequently, it cannot be ruled that the Danish and Greenlandish government will sanction a referendum on independence and subsequent closer relations with the United States, but they would only do so in the firm belief that any offer would be rejected by the Greenlandish population. Now the Brexit referendum reminds everyone that governments should be careful about allowing such a vote in the conviction that they control the outcome. But in the case of Greenland, the contest does not appear close.
More importantly, the coming engagement of the Danish and Greenland government with the Trump Administration on any “US offer to buy Greenland” will certainly see the notion firmly rejected, as Greenland is not for sale, but nonetheless will be the starting point of a potentially longer diplomatic process. The aim here for Denmark and Greenland will be to “run down the clock” to first the US Mid-term election, which may give President Trump other political priorities and in any case if Republicans lose control of one of the Houses de facto rule out the possibility of Congressional sanctioning of any “offer on Greenland”.
There remains, however, plenty of diplomatic space for a “mutual victory” to be declared, as the current bilateral defense treaty between Denmark and the United States concerning Greenland enables the United States to essentially place as many U.S. troops in Greenland as it wants – during the Cold War The United States had a very significant military presence in Greenland (figure 1).
Figure 1: United States Historical and Current Military Presence in Greenland
Trump can therefore put thousands of U.S. troops in Greenland to “protect American national security” with the full political blessing of Denmark and Greenland, and go on to declare that he has addressed this issue. Similarly with regards to possible U.S. investments in critical minerals in Greenland, which has always been an option, but never really made much commercial sense, given the costs of arctic extraction hereof. If the Trump Administration – equal to what has been mulled with regards to U.S. oil company investments in Venezuela – offers U.S. tax-payer money to subsidize or guarantee private investments in Greenland’s critical minerals sector, maybe a better commercial case for it can be established. If so, there is nothing to politically or legally prevent U.S. firms from putting their own and U.S. tax-payers’ money at risk in Greenland.
Donald Trump therefore has, given his extraordinary political skills at “creating wins”, plenty of diplomatic options to do so also in Greenland. As the domestic political obstacles to pursuing military options and purchase strategies will quickly prove prohibitive once in contact with political reality in Washington in an election year, he looks overwhelmingly likely to do so. Intensifying conflict over Greenland consequently continues to represent only a remote possibility.
Jacob
