U.S. President Donald Trump wearing a "happy Trump" pin speaks during a meeting with oil industry executives at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote on Friday that over the past year President Donald Trump has engaged in what “resembled a game of chicken,” but in the end, only Trump swerved at the last minute.
His first 18 months as president have been marked by policies like arresting Venezuelan politician Nicolás Maduro and waging war against Iran. It has pushed European leaders to view Trump’s Greenland threats as if they must prepare for war against the United States itself, he explained.
By linking Greenland to U.S. national security needs, Trump and his aides have signaled that “all options” are on the table, including military ones. In response, officials from Denmark, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Poland, Spain and others have issued statements insisting that only Greenland can decide what the future of Greenland will be. They’ve warned that any U.S. attack on Greenland would mean “the end of NATO” and the post‑WWII alliance.
Ignatius explained that U.S. and Danish officials have met to agree to overall terms about the U.S. having military bases on Greenland and a deal appears close for the first time since Trump took office. However, it has been a long and frightening road getting to that point.
"Trump hates to back down. But taking Greenland by force, against European armed resistance, appears to be a bridge too far. The question is whether he can find an exit ramp soon, at a moment when his other foreign policy problems are compounding," wrote Ignatius.
He recalled that the scheme comes from the first Trump term, when experts and top officials were able to shut down most of Trump's ideas. In 2018, John Bolton's team was asked to put together a memo detailing how the U.S. could increase its presence in Greenland without a military takeover.
The plan was exposed publicly in 2019 and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen attacked it as “absurd.” Ignatius said it was like waving a red flag at a bull. The female leader earned an attack by Trump as "nasty" and his feelings were hurt that Denmark was treating him "the way they treated us under President Obama," Trump told reporters.
"Trump now had a grudge, and the island was in play, in his mind at least," wrote Ignatius.
In his new administration, the renewed mission kicked into overdrive, particularly after Trump captured Maduro. The White House began to say that all options were on the table, including a military takeover. Europe began preparations for what it called Operation Arctic Endurance. Everything escalated until Trump finally began backing down.
"Having climbed the ladder of escalation to the point of military mobilization, Trump finally decided to climb down," wrote the columnist.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos on Jan. 21, Trump raged, “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won’t do that ... I won’t use force.”
He closed by asking, "Has the Greenland war been averted? Probably, but with Trump it’s never over until it’s over — and even then it’s not over."
Former CIA intelligence officer Marc Polymeropoulos called the ordeal "embarrassing behavior on the Greenland issue." He explained that the main reason that the U.S. was left to go at it alone in Iran directly correlated to Trump's Greenland threats.
"We treat allies like total garbage; they eventually give us the middle finger (when we actually need them)," he wrote on X.