Ex-Trump official says Greenland threat worse than imagined — and asks if Canada is 'next'
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U.S. President Donald Trump with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on May 6, 2025 (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok/Flickr)
A former top Trump official is warning that President Donald Trump’s threats to Greenland are worse than could be imagined, and wonders if he will stop there or target another close U.S. ally, like Canada, next.
John Bolton, who served as Trump’s National Security Adviser during the first Trump administration, told NewsNation that the “damage that Donald Trump is doing to America’s reputation, to the trust and good faith and reliance, our European allies and friends around the world have on us is just impossible to state.”
He called it “extraordinary” to “threaten the invasion of a NATO ally, to seize by force a territory from a democracy.”
“The impact in Europe,” he said, “you cannot calculate how bad this is for us.”
Trump has ramped up his threats to acquire Greenland, and has refused to commit to not using military force to take control of the semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Bolton added, “if you want to rip up the NATO alliance, if you want to convince every other American ally around the world — Japan, South Korea, Australia — that we can’t be trusted, go ahead and use military force against Denmark in Greenland.”
“Go ahead and threaten your best friends and allies with retaliatory tariffs, because they just won’t give in,” he continued. “This is so counterproductive for the United States that it’s gonna take years to repair the damage that Donald Trump is doing, and none of it will do anything for the security of Greenland or the NATO alliance.”
“Well,” he added, “consider what it means for the United States to invade an ally like Denmark. Is Canada next? Shall we invade Great Britain? How about Spain?”
Bolton asked, “what is it that gives Trump the idea that the only way to deal with one of the friendliest countries in the world toward America, for 250 years, is to threaten military force?”