欧洲

2026-01-17 America’s hunger for Greenland is tearing NATO apart

President Donald Trump, infuriated by European allies’ resistance to his effort to annex the autonomous Danish territory, said on January 17th that he would impose 10% tariffs on imports from eight European countries that had sent troops there two days earlier. European leaders vowed not to be bullied.

In a rambling social-media post, Mr Trump accused allies of causing “a very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet”. He said the 10% impost would rise to 25% in June and continue “until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland”.

The stakes for NATO are enormous. “If the United States decides to militarily attack another NATO country, then everything would stop,” argued Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister on January 5th. “That includes NATO and therefore post-second-world-war security.”

Rows among NATO members are not unknown. From the 1950s to the 1970s Britain and Iceland waged the so-called cod wars, with Icelandic ships opening fire in 1975. More importantly, Turkey invaded Cyprus the previous year, bringing it into direct conflict with Greek-Cypriot and some Greek troops. Greece responded by pulling out of NATO’s integrated military command for six years. In 1996 a Greek fighter jet shot down a Turkish warplane over the Aegean sea. And in 2020 a Turkish warship locked its fire-control radar onto a French frigate in the Mediterranean, amid tensions over Libya’s civil war.

American threats to Greenland are far more serious because America remains the political and military backbone of NATO. An American general serves, as one has done for 75 years, as the supreme allied commander Europe (SACEUR). NATO defence plans for Europe—including Greenland—were written by the last SACEUR, Chris Cavoli, and assume a high degree of American involvement. American military officers sit atop and are woven throughout every major command. And without American air power and intelligence, NATO forces would find it much harder and costlier to defeat Russian aggression.

If America were to absorb Greenland, whether by legal fait accompli or force, the resulting crisis would collapse European trust in Article 5, the alliance’s mutual-defence clause. Mr Trump has frequently cast doubt on it. European faith now hangs by a thread. If he were willing to dismember one European country, why would he come to the aid of another being dismembered by Russia?

2026-01-15 Germany’s economy is so bad even sausage factories are closing

Germany’s economy, the third-biggest in the world by nominal GDP, has been stagnant for three years, and factory closures and insolvencies are reaching worrying levels. On January 8th Zalando, a big German online fashion retailer, said it would close a logistics centre that employs 2,700 workers in Erfurt, also in eastern Germany. Preliminary figures from Destatis, the German statistics agency, show insolvencies in December rose by 15% compared with the same month in 2024. The transport, hospitality and construction sectors were especially strongly affected. Last year’s annual total of more than 17,600 company insolvencies was the highest in 20 years, according to the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Halle.

Last year they included some of the country’s biggest names: Goertz (shoes), Gerry Weber and Esprit (fashion), Groschenmarkt (discount retail), Karrie Bau (construction) and Zoo Zajac (the world’s largest pet store).

No more: export-oriented industries are especially vulnerable to global conflict, tariffs and high energy prices. The country’s entire economic model is ill-suited to new realities. Until it adjusts, even sausage makers will find themselves on the chopping block.

2026-01-14 Europe has three options for defending Greenland

Anything less than having the island “in the hands of the United States” would be “unacceptable”, Mr Trump wrote on social media before the meeting. Otherwise Greenland would fall into the clutches of Russia or China.

Their options fall into three camps: deflate, deter and distract.

Under the terms of an agreement signed with Denmark in 1951 America may in effect station as many troops as it likes on the island. After the cold war America shrank what had been a substantial deployment to what is now fewer than 200 troops at a single base on the island’s north-west, used for space surveillance and early-warning radar. Greenland also sits under NATO’s security umbrella.