NATO ends if Trump invades Greenland, EU commissioner warns

Andrius Kubilius is the most senior EU official to have backed up Danish PM on her assertion the Greenland issue could kill the alliance.

A U.S. military takeover of Greenland would mean the end of NATO, Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius has said, echoing the view of Danish leader Mette Frederiksen.

"I agree with the Danish prime minister that it will be the end of NATO, but also among people it will be also very, very negative," Kubilius told Reuters on Monday at a security conference in Sweden.

The island is a largely autonomous part of Denmark. President Donald Trump has said the U.S. needs Greenland for its own security and that it must be owned by Washington to prevent Russia and China from taking over. An American military presence there, he added, is not enough to keep Moscow and Beijing out.

Kubilius' words mark the first time a top EU official has publicly backed Frederiksen's position, although EU diplomats privately agree with her.

"I will also make it clear that if the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops, including NATO, and thus the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War,” Frederiksen said in a Jan. 5 interview with broadcaster TV2.

The statement contrasts, though, with that of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who today insisted the alliance is not in crisis.

Trump was asked in a two-hour interview with the New York Times on Jan. 7 whether acquiring Greenland mattered more to him than preserving the military alliance.

The U.S. leader did not answer the question directly but acknowledged that his administration may have to choose between the two.

EU diplomats who spoke to POLITICO tended not to believe the U.S. will use military force to take over Greenland, but agreed that Trump will get something from the pressure he has been applying — at the very least a beefed-up European military presence.