From the idea of purchasing Greenland to the shutdown of Venezuela’s power grid, Donald Trump’s foreign policy repeatedly pushes the boundaries of traditional diplomacy – yet consistently avoids launching new wars. According to Gábor Csizmazia, a senior research fellow at the John Lukacs Institute of the National University of Public Service (NUPS), under the banner of “America First”, Washington wields its economic and military power as a blunt instrument, even against its allies. This approach can yield short-term results, but it carries serious long-term risks.
I want to ask about the current leeway of the United States’ foreign policy and its domestic political impacts. Recently, there have been many exciting developments concerning Greenland, Venezuela and Iran. My first question: can we speak today of a coherent American geopolitics, or rather a foreign policy dominated by ad hoc, transaction-based decisions?
In fact, we can talk about a combination of the two. On the one hand, the basic tenets of the American geopolitical school are still alive today, so there is a certain continuity. For example, regarding Venezuela, Trump openly revived the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine (the Western Hemisphere is to be considered the exclusive sphere of interest of the United States, where European powers may neither colonise nor intervene politically; in return, the United States refrains from interfering in European power or political affairs – Ed.) – this shows how deeply American thinking is defined by its own traditions. Another enduring principle dates from the end of the 19th century: ensuring the navigability and freedom of international waters. In other words, to this day, the US insists on controlling the main maritime trade routes and ensuring their security. These traditional principles remain in place. At the same time, in parallel, Trump pursues a “transactional”, ad hoc deal-making approach to foreign policy, often implemented hastily or inconsistently. In this way, he tries to enforce the aforementioned American imperatives on specific fronts – the case of Greenland also fits this pattern.
Are such hard measures as the ones we saw in Venezuela also part of this toolkit? Or was that more of a less deliberate, ad hoc solution?
On the one hand, the Venezuela operation was a show of strength: the US demonstrated its technological superiority, which left many astonished. At the same time, the “hard” toolkit is not limited to military force – it also includes economic instruments. Last year’s National Security Strategy states that the United States seeks to influence other countries and regions through tariffs. In other words, tariffs are not merely tools of economic policy, but also weapons of foreign and security policy. We saw this last year as well: in the trade deals with Japan, South Korea and the EU, the US firmly linked trade issues with security issues. The American side even connected trade disputes to defence guarantees. Tariffs thus emerged as a kind of cudgel in the foreign policy arsenal: with its economic might, the US can not only exert “attractive force” but can also punish. By now, this has become a permanent feature of Trump’s foreign policy. Additionally, demonstrating military power has remained part of the toolkit (Trump, in the spirit of “the power of peace”, strives to avoid new wars).
Let’s turn specifically to Greenland. How has Greenland now come to occupy the centre of foreign policy debate in the United States? Is it part of a broader strategy, or is this the usual Trumpian political tactic? I’m referring to what is called “negotiating backwards”: first, I make a very bold statement, then I slowly step back until I reach my real goal. What do we see now in the Greenland issue?
The situation really is twofold. At an operational level, the “negotiating backwards” tactic is evident. Not long ago, the Danish Prime Minister was in Washington for talks with the American Vice President and Senator Marco Rubio. Rubio brought up the purchase of Greenland, but the discussion remained calm and rational, and it produced no breakthrough. After that, Trump – who wasn’t even at the meeting – began publicly insisting that one way or another he would acquire the island, even floating the threat of punitive tariffs against Denmark. This method was clearly on display. At the same time, I don’t think all this is part of any overarching strategy. The aforementioned National Security Strategy does not mention Greenland. An Arctic presence has been on the agenda of American foreign policy for years, but until now, Greenland did not figure in U.S. strategies whatsoever. In sum, the Greenland question came up along the way: Trump suddenly announced that during his presidency, he would bring the island under American sovereignty. The details are known only from leaks. Reportedly, several scenarios were considered – from the peaceful ramping up of American investments and military presence to purchasing the island, to military occupation – but almost everyone deems the last of these highly unlikely.
The Chinese and Russian factors are often mentioned in connection with Greenland as well. One view is that the island is of interest because of its rare-earth metals; another is that it’s of interest because of its shipping routes. Is it really the latter? Are the Americans terrified of this, or are they just using it to justify their actions?
I think the Americans are primarily worried about shipping routes – they consider them more critical than rare earth metals. This comes across in American rhetoric, too. It’s not only Trump saying so: several members of his administration have hinted that, in theory, there’s no need to hurry, since Denmark is a NATO member state. So if Greenland were to face Russian or Chinese aggression, the US would defend the island under NATO’s collective defence clause. Even so, American statements betray that Washington doesn’t trust Europe. They believe that neither the Danes nor, especially, Greenland’s tiny population could defend the island; they don’t have sufficient deterrent capability. Essentially, the Americans shoulder that task themselves. There is some truth to this, but it highlights an uncomfortable fact: no matter how much the Europeans increase their defence spending on paper, America still does not trust their actual military capabilities.
Finally, could the Greenland affair be a precursor to how the United States will conduct its foreign policy going forward? Should the allies prepare for Washington to treat strategically important regions in this manner? Or was it just a one-off signal?
It is partly a harbinger, but in reality, things were already headed in this direction. The US continues to act forcefully according to its own interests, often flouting the rules – it doesn’t bother with subtlety. Greenland is just another example in the line (similar to the moves in Venezuela and Iran), the only difference being that this time the conflict arose within a military alliance. It’s unlikely Washington would want to break up NATO – dividing allies is part of Trump’s logic, but NATO itself is useful for America. Overall, the Greenland case is a peculiar but not unprecedented phenomenon, one that, in terms of method, fits into the series of earlier American actions. It’s not a radically new direction, but rather part of a continuity.
Gábor Csizmazia is a senior research fellow at the National University of Public Service’s John Lukacs Institute. His research focuses primarily on US domestic and foreign policy, the evolution of American conservative thought, and the strategic worldview of various presidential administrations. In his analyses, he regularly examines the internal transformation of the Republican Party, the foreign policy direction of the Trump, Biden and earlier Obama administrations, as well as shifts in America’s global role.
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