Republicans in Congress have long been afraid to speak out against Donald Trump. Most of them usually tolerate almost anything from their leader. But for several of them, the president’s militant threats against NATO ally Denmark have crossed a line.
Protests are bubbling up.
The 86-year-old Democratic super-veteran Steny Hoyer is trying to capitalize on this to halt Trump’s Arctic colonialism. He is attempting to mobilize bipartisan support for a bill that would make it clear that Congress does not support military aggression in Greenland.
»I think there is a broad feeling in the Congress of the United States that the discussion about Denmark is both dangerous and absurd«, Steny Hoyer tells Politiken from the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
He points, for example, to the long-time Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, who on Wednesday described it in a particularly sharp statement on Facebook as »an especially catastrophic act of strategic self-harm« to take a democratic and sovereign Greenland from »one of America’s most loyal and capable allies«.
Rand Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky, told CBS:
»I will do everything in my power to stop any kind of military takeover in Greenland«.
»This is terrible. Greenland is a NATO ally. Denmark is one of our best friends«, Don Bacon, who is elected to the House of Representatives in Nebraska, told CNN.
Lisa Murkowski, a Republican senator from Alaska, wrote on X that any attempt to take Greenland by force »would degrade both our national security and our international relations«.
Others – including leading Republicans – express more cautious opposition.
»I do not see military action being an option there«, said the Republican leader of the Senate, John Thune, on Tuesday to American journalists.
The White House maintains that it is an option.
Mike Johnson, who leads the other chamber, the House of Representatives, simply said that Greenland is not on his to-do list.
Who will stop us?
The White House has in recent days, following the U.S. military attack on Venezuela, escalated its aggressive rhetoric around Greenland.
Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has said that it is the government’s official policy that the U.S. has the right to »take« Greenland with a brutalist argument that the strong can simply overpower the less strong. No one will dare to stop the U.S. militarily, he said.
This prompted Republican Senator Thom Tillis from North Carolina to urge Stephen Miller to stop talking about things he doesn’t understand or find another job.
Tillis, who is the highest-ranking Republican in the Senate’s NATO observer group, noted on CNN that when you shake the Western alliance in that way, it sends a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he is winning.
»I, as a member of the US Senate, get to weigh in to this issue«, said Thom Tillis, adding:
»And I know, whether they say it out loud or not, most of my colleagues agree with me«.
Failure of Greenland
Vice President JD Vance repeated his claim on Wednesday that Denmark has not properly taken care of Greenland.
»Have the Danes done a proper job of securing Greenland and of making sure it can continue to serve as an anchor for world security and missile defence?’ The answer is obviously they haven’t«, said JD Vance.
The notion that the U.S. needs to »have« Greenland to defend the Arctic does not make sense, points out Steny Hoyer and his Republican colleague Blake Moore, who together lead a group in the House of Representatives called Congressional Friends of Denmark.
»If we want to deploy more forces or build additional missile defense infrastructure in Greenland, Denmark has given us a green light to do so. Our ally has always accommodated us. Threatening to annex Greenland needlessly undermines that cooperation for no gain«, reads a joint statement from the two.
The U.S. has a treaty obligation to help defend Greenland but has itself closed numerous military bases and installations. There have been 27. Only one remains.
Purchase offer under threats
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has in recent days indicated that the U.S. will try to »buy« Greenland rather than »take« the country.
The U.S. has tried this before, points out Steny Hoyer. It would be fair enough if both Denmark and Greenland had not already made it clear that Greenland is not for sale, and if the military threat did not hang over the ’offer’, he says.
»You’ve got to have a willing seller, not a seller that sells under compunction. If you don’t sell it, we’re going to steal it«, he says.
Do you think your Republican colleagues would actively object and try to stop it if it happened? Because in the past, there’s a difference between not concurring and actively objecting.
»Yeah, I’ve noticed that. The answer is, because this current Republican leadership in both the Senate and the House have been so compliant with the requests of the president, I think there’s reason for concern. But my view is that the concern would be present, and the opposition would be present, beyond what has happened in the past, because this has significant and troubling and dangerous implications as it relates to NATO itself, NATO’s viability and sense of trust in one another, and particularly in the United States. I think members understand that, and I think there is strong, strong support for NATO«.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that if the U.S. were to take Greenland by force, it would effectively mean the end of the Western military alliance. Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski directly urged the U.S. Congress this week to use its powers to stop Trump.
Steny Hoyer believes that Denmark and the other NATO countries have reason to be concerned.
»You’ve got to pay close attention to Trump because what Trump says, a lot of times he does«, says Hoyer.
»But you’re also hearing not just my words, which would, you know, everybody would say, well, of course, he’s a very close friend of Denmark. He’s Danish, the Danish American. Of course, he’s going to say that. But you’re seeing, you’re hearing leaders, Republican leaders express reservations«, he says:
»A lot of Republicans are thinking to themselves, why is the president of the United States doing this? Why? He’s creating a problem that does not exist«,believes Steny Hoyer.
Whether they will actually act this time by, for example, voting for his bill, the 86-year-old Democrat does not dare to predict.
»My belief, my hope is that there will be a significant bipartisan expression of opposition to the concept that somehow we would take Greenland«.
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