During his speech at the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Greenland to become part of the United States. In Europe, Trump drew a lot of mockery for repeatedly confusing Greenland and Iceland during the speech. And leaders of longtime U.S. allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to French President Emmanuel Macron to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — remain adamant in their opposition to Trump's Greenland push.
Much of the criticism is coming from a variety of mainstream liberal, conservative, progressive and centrist officials. But in an article published on January 27, The Guardian's Jon Henley reports that even far-right European populists who generally like Trump and the MAGA movement want Trump to leave Greenland alone. And according to The Guardian, they are feeling "spooked."
"For radical-right populists — who lead or support governments in a third of the EU's member states, are vying for power in others, and who saw in Trump a powerful ally for their nation-first, anti-immigration, EU-critical cause — he is increasingly a liability," Henley explains. "The divide could jeopardize the goals of his administration's National Security Strategy, which set a U.S. policy objective of 'cultivating resistance' to Europe's 'current trajectory' by working with 'patriotic allies' to avert 'civilizational erasure.'"
Trump and his MAGA allies have been strong supporters of far-right populists in Europe, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, France's Marine Le Pen (leader of the National Rally party, formerly the National Front), and Germany's Alternative For Germany ("Alternative für Deutschland'' in German).
But according to Henley, Trump's Greenland push is hurting his relationship with the European far-right.
"Just over a year ago," Henley observes, "Europe's far-right leaders were effusively welcoming Trump's return to the White House. A few months later, they gathered in Madrid to applaud his America First agenda under the banner 'Make Europe Great Again.' More recently, some have been having second thoughts."
Henley adds, "Polling consistently shows Trump is hugely unpopular in Europe. Most Europeans, including many far-right voters, see the U.S. president as a danger to the EU and want a stronger bloc. Polling published on Tuesday by the Paris-based European affairs debate platform Le Grand Continent suggested that between 18 percent and 25 percent of far-right voters in France, Germany, Italy and Spain consider Trump as an 'enemy of Europe.'"
Trump's "expansionism," according to Henley, "puts Europe's far right in a tough position" because when they "criticized his plans" for Greenland, they sounded "like the mainstream politicians they despise."
Read Jon Henley's full article for The Guardian at this link.

