00:00Well, the short answer is no. So this meeting came after more than a week of heightened tensions amid ongoing rhetoric from the US President about what he intends to do at Greenland.
00:09Now, he appears to be showing no sign of dialing back that rhetoric. If anything, he is stepping it up. And as a result, this crisis seems to be deepening.
00:17The meeting which took place was between the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers, US Vice President J.D. Vance and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
00:25Afterwards, the Danish side spoke of a fundamental disagreement, given that Donald Trump's talk of conquering Greenland is, in the eyes of Denmark and Greenland, totally unacceptable.
00:35The Danish Prime Minister probably put the state of things best when she said afterwards, quote, the American ambition to take over Greenland is intact.
00:43Now, the good news is that it was the first formal meeting between these sides since Trump first raised the idea of buying Greenland way back in 2019.
00:50Now, they did agree to set up a high-level working group to discuss the future of the Arctic island, and the first meeting of the group is expected very soon.
00:59But again, Denmark and Greenland repeatedly emphasised their red lines, and they spoke about the fact that the sides currently have irreconcilable positions.
01:07So that really casts doubt on how fruitful or productive these working group discussions would be if the US doesn't step back a little.
01:15Well, Trump keeps referring to the fact that, in his view, Denmark isn't capable of defending Greenland, and that there are security risks in the Arctic region due to a growing rivalry with China and Russia.
01:26So NATO's European members themselves have been trying to counter that perception.
01:30They're stepping up talk of increased Arctic security and Denmark and several other NATO allies, including Germany, France, the UK, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
01:39They have all committed to send modest numbers of troops and equipment to Greenland very soon to help boost security in the region.
01:46France has already sent troops, around 15 in total, with President Emmanuel Macron calling an emergency defence meeting this week to discuss the ongoing threat from the US to annex the territory.
01:56Now, Denmark itself has issued a statement saying that it will increase its military presence in Greenland immediately, saying that more aircraft, vessels and soldiers from the country and from other NATO allies would be deployed to Greenland.
02:09And the country's defence minister has spoken of a more permanent NATO presence there.
02:14Now, as for the actual leadership of NATO, so the Secretary General and the organisation itself, they have kept really quiet about all this.
02:21They haven't released a statement backing Greenland or Denmark.
02:24They haven't responded to Trump's threats directly.
02:27And that's obviously due to the fact that the US itself is NATO's most important member.
02:32So the alliance is trying to keep all sides on side, so to speak.
02:36And asked about the Greenland crisis this week, the NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, played down any suggestions that this issue threatened the alliance.
02:44And in fact, he heaped praise on Donald Trump.
02:46Well, we live in an era where these things can be exaggerated.
02:49There can be some hyperbole attached, but I don't think we can really overstate the seriousness of how this last week and this week has impacted US-European relations.
02:58The US president is repeatedly threatening to invade and use military force on European territory.
03:04That's obviously part of NATO territory, despite the people of Greenland and Denmark making it extremely clear that they are totally opposed to this.
03:10So ignoring this on the part of European leaders would obviously be pretty foolish and cavalier.
03:15And most European leaders are appalled by these threats.
03:18Even the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Maloney, who does enjoy a strong relationship with Trump, she said publicly this week she disagreed with them on the issue.
03:26Now, for years, European leaders have been grappling with the fact that the transatlantic alliance between the US and the EU is undermined by Trump's policies.
03:34Yet until now, that alliance has largely held up.
03:37But what European leaders do agree on right now is that it could not withstand a US assault on Greenland.
03:43The alliance simply would not survive that.
03:45And that's why this rhetoric, if not reined in, is being taken so seriously.
03:50Germany's vice chancellor said this week that the alliance between the US and the EU was disintegrating, more so than many politicians wish to admit.
03:57And some European politicians have already started to talk about how any seizure of Greenland by the US would lead to a breakdown in EU-US economic relations.
04:06So if the US doesn't step back from its rhetoric, it's difficult to see how this relationship is not very badly damaged by what's going on at the moment.
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