LONDON — President Donald Trump warned Europe that he no longer feels “the obligation to think purely of peace,” linking his hostile campaign to seize Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Norway’s leader has said.
The message was the latest move in the spiraling transatlantic tensions between the United States and Europe, which vowed Monday not to be blackmailed by Trump’s intensifying pressure to take over the Danish territory.
As European powers scrambled to respond to Trump’s promise to implement tariffs on countries that stand in his way, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre went public with the president’s warning.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump said in the message, the text of which was first reported by PBS and confirmed as accurate in a statement by the Norwegian leader.
The White House did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment from NBC News. Later, Trump was guarded when NBC News asked how far he’d go to take control of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
Asked if he would use force to seize Greenland, the president said, “No comment,” in a brief telephone interview.
European governments weighed a strong response to their longtime ally ahead of an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday.
“Germany and France agree: We will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed,” German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said. “Blackmail between allies of 250 years, blackmail between friends, is obviously unacceptable,” French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said at the same event.
“We Europeans must make it clear: The limit has been reached,” Klingbeil said.
Later Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz cut a more measured tone, telling an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that we “want to avoid any escalation in this dispute at all if possible.”
European governments are considering a range of options, including their own tariffs.
One is the European Union’s “bazooka” — officially known as the Anti-Coercion Instrument, which has never been used before.
This allows E.U. countries to take retaliatory action against any rivals seen as threatening the bloc, and could involve restricting American access to tenders or investment proposals.
Some geopolitical and historical experts believe Trump’s pursuit of Greenland has now become the lowest ebb of transatlantic relations since the Suez Crisis of 1956, when the U.S. pressured Britain, France and Israel to withdraw after invading Egypt.
It was against this recent decline in relations that Trump’s message to the Norwegian leader was made public.
“I can confirm that this is a text message that I received yesterday afternoon from President Trump,” the Norwegian leader said. He said it came in response to an initial communication from himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, in which they conveyed their “opposition to his announced tariff increases.”
Støre also pointed out that — regardless of its merits — this backlash was misdirected, as the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and not the Norwegian government.
Trump has made no secret of his desire to become a Nobel laureate, or of his displeasure when it was instead awarded to the Venezuelan opposition activist María Corina Machado last month.
Machado presented Trump with the award last week, after he left her out of his plans for Venezuela following the capture of President Nicolás Maduro. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that the coveted prize cannot “even symbolically, be passed on or further distributed.”
Trump says that he wants Greenland to counter what he calls a growing threat from Russia and China.
The U.S. already has huge leeway to establish military bases on the Arctic island or strike deals to mine its vast mineral resources.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended Trump’s moves, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the president was using “the economic might of the U.S. to avoid a hot war.” He said the goal was to avoid a future “national emergency.”
On Monday, Bessent addressed the issue of Trump’s feelings aboutt the Nobel.
It was a complete “canard” to think Trump’s actions on Greenland were due to the prize, Bessent told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to Reuters.
