Donald Trump’s attempt to acquire Greenland has driven a wedge between the US president and his far-right ideological allies in Europe, as his expansionist agenda collides with their core principle of national sovereignty. Polling from Le Grand Continent suggests that between 18% and 25% of far-right voters in France, Germany, Italy and Spain now view Trump as an ‘enemy of Europe’.
Further polling indicates that between 29% and 40% of supporters of parties such as the National Rally, Alternative für Deutschland, Brothers of Italy and Vox define Trump’s foreign policy as ‘recolonisation and the predation of global resources’. Remarkably, between 30% and 49% of far-right voters in those countries would support the deployment of European troops to Greenland if tensions escalated.
In a European parliamentary debate, far-right MEPs overwhelmingly backed freezing ratification of an EU-US trade deal, citing coercion and threats to sovereignty. Jordan Bardella, president of France’s National Rally, called Trump’s pledge to seize Greenland ‘a direct challenge to the sovereignty of a European country’ and urged the EU to unite in self-defence.
Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany’s AfD, stated that Trump had ‘violated a fundamental campaign promise – not to interfere in other countries’. Even Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, described the threat of tariffs over Greenland as ‘a very hostile act’. Leaders in office, such as Italy’s far-right premier, were less outspoken, wary of retaliation.
The divide could jeopardise the goals of Trump’s national security strategy, which aimed to cultivate resistance to Europe’s trajectory by working with ‘patriotic allies’. However, his actions have instead made him a liability for populist movements that once saw him as a powerful ally.
