It seems European leaders frantically trying to find ways to save Greenland from Donald Trump can hope for support from the US Congress. Over the past several days, opposition to the White House’s threats to seize the Danish territory has been growing on both sides of the aisle.
While it comes as no surprise that Democrats have largely condemned Trump’s designs on Greenland, particularly any use of military force to seize the island, the fact that even leading Republicans are publicly breaking with their president on this issue is highly unusual.
With the November midterm elections coming into focus, this rare show of dissent underscores how seriously Congressional Republicans view the situation.
“This is appalling,” Republican Congressman Don Bacon said in a TV interview. “Greenland is a NATO ally. Denmark is one of our best friends… so the way we’re treating them is really demeaning and it has no upside.”
Referring to the Greenland rhetoric as one of the “silliest things” to come out of the White house over the past year, Bacon urged his fellow Republicans to join him in taking a stand.
“I hope other Republicans line up behind me and make it clear to the White House this is wrong,” Bacon said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, meanwhile dismissed out of hand the prospect of deploying the military to seize the Arctic island, saying on Tuesday it was “not something that anybody is contemplating seriously.”
Thune’s remarks came after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller used an interview to insist that Greenland should rightfully belong to the US.
“What right does Denmark have to assert control over Greenland? What is the basis of their territorial claim? What is their basis of having Greenland as a colony of Denmark?, Miller said on CNN.
Miller’s remarks also prompted a searing speech on the Senate floor by retiring Republican Senator Thom Tillis, the party’s top representative of the Senate NATO Observer Group.
“I’m sick of stupid,” a fiery Tillis said. “I want good advice for this president, because I want this president to have a good legacy. And this nonsense on what’s going on with Greenland is a distraction from the good work he’s doing, and the amateurs who said it was a good idea should lose their jobs.”
Tillis, who is usually aligned with the administration, was still angry hours later when he went on cable television.
“Either Stephen Miller needs to get into a lane where he knows what he’s talking about or get out of this job,” he declared.
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who co-chairs the Senate Arctic Caucus, said she “hates” the idea of the US taking Greenland by purchase or force, and “I don’t use the word hate very often.”
“I think that it’s very, very unsettling,” Murkowski told reporters.
“Any effort to claim or take the territory by force would degrade both our national security ad our international relationships,” she added on X.
And former Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell cautioned that threatening a NATO ally would be “counterproductive” and harmful to US interests.
“Threats and intimidation by US officials over American ownership of Greenland are as unseemly as they are counterproductive,” McConnell, a Trump critic, said in a statement.
“And the use of force to seize the sovereign democratic territory of one of America’s most loyal and capable allies would be an especially catastrophic act of strategic self-harm to America and its global influence.”
The right’s Greenland dilemma
The split between the Republican congressional leadership and the White House highlights the tensions in the party over the president’s military adventurism.
While most Republicans have backed Trump’s military strikes around the world – including in Yemen, Iran and Venezuela – some lawmakers are now warning that threatening a NATO ally is going too far.
So far, Republicans have largely dismissed Trump’s threats to invade the island as a negotiating tactic, but that position is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain as senior White House officials repeatedly confirm that military force is on the table.
That’s why more and more Republicans feel they need to put their heads above the parapet, especially in view of a planned Senate vote by the Democratic opposition on a resolution to prevent the US from invading Greenland.
With Congressional midterm elections ten months away, Republicans are realising that Greenland is not a winning campaign issue. On the contrary: ever since Trump first brought up the Arctic territory as “a large real estate deal” in 2019, polls showed Americans consider a Greenland land grab a low priority or poor idea by large margins.
In addition, they consider Trump’s rhetoric unrealistic and a distraction from domestic concerns.
Republican members of Congress also don’t seem to buy the argument that the US needs Greenland for national security, since a US-Danish agreement from 1951 already enables Washington to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases across Greenland at will.
So, why does Trump want the territory at all?
“He wants the United States to look bigger on a map,” said Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky in an emailed statement. “Combined, the United States and Greenland would have a greater land mass than Russia – the largest land mass in the world. For Trump, who is all about optics, this matters.”
But for many Republicans who are already facing tough headwinds because of Trump’s unpopular domestic policies, defending a Greenland grab in their own re-election campaigns seems a bridge too far.