Denmark lost 52 soldiers fighting alongside the US. Now it feels threatened by Trump

All his grownup life, Colonel Soren Knudsen stepped ahead when his nation known as. And when its allies did.

He fought alongside US troops, notably in Afghanistan, and for a time was Denmark’s most senior officer there. He counted 58 rocket assaults throughout his obligation.

“I used to be awarded a Bronze Star Medal by the USA and so they gave me the Stars and Stripes. They’ve been hanging on my wall in our home ever since and I’ve proudly proven them to everyone.”

Then one thing modified.

“After JD Vance’s assertion on Greenland, the president’s disrespect for internationally acknowledged borders, I took people who Stars and Stripes down and the medal has been put away,” Soren says, his voice breaking just a little.

This week earlier than Congress, the US president doubled down on his need to grab the world’s greatest island: Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.

“My first feeling was that it hurts, and the second is that I am offended,” Col Knudsen laments.

I meet him within the first weeks of his retirement outdoors Denmark’s 18th Century royal residence, Amalienborg Palace within the coronary heart of Copenhagen.

Abruptly, pipers strike up and troopers stream by.

As we speak’s Altering of the Guard comes at a time when the Trump administration has not simply tweaked however defenestrated most assumptions round US-European safety which have held quick for 80 years.

“It is about values and when these values are axed by what we thought was an ally, it will get very powerful to look at.” Soren says along with his American spouse Gina at his facet.

“Denmark freely and with out query joined these efforts the place my husband served,” she says.

“So it comes as a shock to listen to threats from a rustic that I additionally love and to really feel that alliance is being trampled on. This feels private, not like some summary overseas coverage tactic.”

Soren has not given up all hope although.

“It is my hope and my prayer that I’ll at some point be capable of put [the flag] again on the wall”, he confides.

There is not any signal his prayers might be answered quickly.

Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, goes to the polls subsequent week with all the primary events backing independence in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later.

A takeover by Donald Trump – doubtlessly by drive – isn’t on the poll paper.

Not removed from the royal palace stands Denmark’s memorial to its troopers misplaced in latest battle.

Carved on the stone-covered partitions are the names of these killed alongside their Western allies.

The part honouring the fallen within the US-led invasion of Afghanistan is especially sizeable.

Denmark misplaced 44 troopers in Afghanistan, which as a proportion of its lower than six million inhabitants, was greater than every other ally aside from the US. In Iraq, eight Danish troopers died.

That is why the president’s phrases sting a lot.

One man very nicely positioned to contemplate what Trump’s ambitions for Greenland really quantity to is Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

“President Trump’s declaration of intention to perhaps take Greenland by drive is similar to President Putin’s rhetoric in the case of Ukraine,” he tells the BBC.

The previous prime minister of Denmark and ex-secretary basic of the Nato alliance argues that is the second Denmark and the remainder of Europe should step as much as higher defend itself if the US isn’t prepared to.

“Since my childhood, I’ve admired the USA and their function because the world’s policeman. And I feel we’d like a policeman to make sure worldwide regulation and order but when the USA doesn’t wish to execute that function, then Europe should be capable of defend itself, to face by itself ft.”

Fogh Rasmussen would not although imagine the policeman is about to show felon.

“I wish to stress I do not suppose on the finish of the day that the People will take Greenland by drive.”

President Trump first talked a couple of Greenland takeover in his first time period of workplace earlier than returning to the theme in the beginning of this 12 months.

However now, after blindsiding supposed allies along with his newest strikes on Ukraine, tariffs, in addition to the Center East, Denmark is urgently attempting the assess the true risk.

For a lot of youthful Danes, management of Greenland is obvious mistaken – an unfathomable colonial hangover.

It does not imply they need it handed straight over the US as a substitute.

“We do have connections to Greenland,” says music pupil Molly. “Denmark and Greenland are fairly separated I might say however I nonetheless have pals from there so this does have an effect on me fairly personally.”

“I discover it actually scary,” says 18-year-old music pupil Luukas.

“Every thing he sees, he goes after. And the factor with the oil and cash, he would not care in regards to the local weather, he would not care about anybody or something.”

His buddy Clara chips in that Trump is now so highly effective he can “have an effect on their day-to-day life” from hundreds of miles away, in what’s an period of unprecedented jeopardy.

In gentle of President Trump’s suspension of army support for Ukraine and his deep reluctance to fund Europe’s safety, Denmark has been on the coronary heart of the drive to spice up defence spending throughout the continent.

The nation has simply introduced it would allocate greater than 3% of its GDP to defence spending in 2025 and 2026 to guard towards future aggression from Russia or elsewhere.

In the meantime, safety analyst Hans Tino Hansen stands in entrance of an enormous display screen in what he calls his “ops room”, at his Copenhagen headquarters.

“This map is the place we replace each day our risk image based mostly on alerts and incidents all around the world,” says Hans, who has been operating Threat Intelligence for the previous 25 years.

As a part of Denmark’s elevated defence spending, it is bolstering its energy within the “Excessive North” with an additional two billion euros introduced in January and three new Arctic naval vessels and funding in long-range drones.

Hans believes Arctic safety may be tightened additional, not by an American takeover – however with new offers that restore US affect.

“For those who make extra agreements, each on defence and safety, but additionally financial ones and on uncooked supplies, then we’re kind of going again to the place we had been within the 50s and 60s.”

However the story stretches additional again than the mid-Twentieth Century.

“For those who have a look at this globe, Greenland is probably the most centrally positioned place on Earth,” says world-renowned geologist Prof Minik Rosing, gesticulating in his wood-panelled workplace.

The serenity of his room displays the temperament of a person who grew up in a settlement of simply “seven or eight individuals” within the Nuuk fjord of the island.

However a key purpose his homeland is now coming underneath rising scrutiny from outsiders is the wealthy mineral deposits beneath the Arctic ice.

We have seen how Ukraine’s pure assets have caught President Trump’s eye in a lot the identical method.

“All these minerals that they speak about like uncommon metals, uncommon earth components – they’re really not uncommon. What’s uncommon is using them,” he causes.

Prof Rosing says the vastness of Greenland and the dearth of infrastructure are simply two components why the island might not be the cashpoint some People are hoping for.

“They’re a minuscule a part of the mining business and the financial system of extracting them could be very unsure, whereas the funding to start out extracting could be very excessive. The danger of the funding is just too excessive relative to the potential achieve.”

The present Greenlandic authorities says there might be a vote on independence in some unspecified time in the future following subsequent week’s election.

Though certainly unintentional, President Trump’s designs on the island have shone a lightweight on a need discovered among the many Inuit to lastly break away from 300 years of Danish management.

However Prof Rosing believes, regardless of all of the latent mineral wealth, his fellow Greenlanders are in no hurry to forego the annual block grant of the equal of £480m (€570m) it receives from Copenhagen.

This accounts for simply greater than half of the island’s public price range.

“Individuals speak about well being providers, colleges, the subsequent outboard engine they need on their boat and what’s the value of gasoline and all of this stuff that standard individuals do,” he says.

“It isn’t like they rise up with an enormous knife, wave it within the air and shout independence, independence.”

When it comes to Trump’s obvious obsession with taking Greenland, Fogh Rasmussen fears there could also be a troubling conclusion to be drawn.

One that might render the Danes unable to do enterprise with a person whose view on territorial integrity is so wildly incompatible from theirs.

“I perceive very nicely the American strategic curiosity within the minerals, however in the case of mining in Greenland, they’ve proven no curiosity,” he says.

“That leaves me with the priority that perhaps it isn’t about safety, perhaps it isn’t about minerals, perhaps it’s only a query of increasing the territory of the USA.

“And that is really some extent the place we’re not in a position to accommodate President Trump.”

Further reporting by Kostas Kallergis