Donald Trump posted private messages from the leaders of Nato and France just a day after his leaked correspondence over Greenland with the prime minister of Norway caused a major diplomatic stir in Europe.
The US president shared a fawning message from Nato secretary general Mark Rutte on his Truth Social platform, in which he said he would use his platform at the World Economic Forum to champion Trump’s work in Gaza and Ukraine.
“I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland. Can’t wait to see you. Yours, Mark,” he said.
Trump also shared a message from French president Emmanuel Macron calling for a meeting and dinner in Paris, as the US leader threatened France with 200 per cent tariffs on French wine over Macron’s refusal to join his so-called Board of Peace.
Trump’s reply, if any, was not part of the screenshot. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The messages come after Trump linked his drive to take control of Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize, saying he no longer thought “purely of Peace” as the row over the island threatened to reignite a trade war with Europe.
The leaked message from Rutte praised the president for his work in Syria, after a ceasefire was agreed with Kurdish-led militia.
It read: “Mr. President, dear Donald – what you accomplished in Syria today is incredible. I will use my media engagements in Davos to highlight your work there, in Gaza, and in Ukraine. I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland. Can’t wait to see you. Yours, Mark”
Last summer, Rutte’s fulsome praise of Trump drew attention, when commended his handling of the Israel-Iran conflict.
“Daddy has to sometimes use strong language to get them to stop,” he said, defending the US president’s use of an expletive.
In the message from Macron to Trump, the French leader expressed concern about the president’s ongoing threats to take Greenland.
The message read: “My friend, We are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran. I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland. Let us try to build great things: 1) i can set up a g7 meeting after Davos in Paris on thursday afternoon.
“I can invite the ukrainians, the danish, the syrians and the russians in the margins 2) let us have a dinner together in Paris together on thursday before you go back to the us. Emmanuel.”
Trump has continued to share a series of inflammatory AI images as tensions over Greenland’s future continue. One showed him talking to European leaders in The White House with the American Flag over Greenland and Canada.
Amid growing concerns over how far Trump will go to annex the territory, the president declined to tell NBC News whether he would use force in an interview. He did reiterate his threat to hit European nations with tariffs if a deal is not reached.
Trump has intensified his push to wrest sovereignty over Greenland from fellow Nato member Denmark, prompting the European Union to weigh hitting back with its own measures.
The dispute threatens to upend the Nato alliance that has underpinned Western security for decades and which was already under strain over the war in Ukraine and Trump’s refusal to protect allies unless they increase defence spending.
Trump’s threat has rattled European industry and sent shockwaves through financial markets. Investors fear a return to the volatility of 2025’s trade war, which only eased when the sides reached tariff deals in the middle of the year.
Trump vowed on Saturday to implement a wave of increasing tariffs from February 1 on EU members Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, along with Britain and Norway, until the U.S. is allowed to buy Greenland, home to only 57,000 people.
“We are living in 2026, you can trade with people, but you don’t trade people,” Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said during a visit to London on Monday.
In a post on Facebook, Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said the territory should be allowed to decide its own fate.
“We will not let ourselves be pressured. We stand firm on dialogue, on respect and on international law,” he said.
Denmark’s military told Reuters that Danish soldiers would land in Kangerlussuaq, western Greenland, on Monday, as part of the Arctic Endurance military exercise.
Trump dismissed the arrival of NATO allies in Greenland.
“That wasn’t a military,” Trump told reporters on Monday in Florida before he boarded a flight back to Washington, DC.
“They sent a few people, and they say they sent them not for me, but to guard against Russia. But you know, NATO has been warning Denmark for about 20 years now, longer than that, 25 years, they’ve been warning Denmark about the Russian threat, and it’s not only Russia, it’s also China.”
Norway’s Stoere said he would change his schedule to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday and Thursday, overlapping with Trump’s planned appearance at the annual gathering of the global political and business elite. The country will not change its stance on Greenland, the country’s foreign minister Espen Barth Eide said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he too would try to meet Trump on Wednesday, adding that a trade dispute was not wanted. “But if we are confronted with tariffs that we consider unreasonable, then we are capable of responding,” Merz said.
Asked by reporters on Monday what he planned to say to European leaders in Davos about his Greenland plan, Trump said: “I don’t think they’re going to push back too much. Look, we have to have it.”
“They have to have this done. They can’t protect it. Denmark, they’re wonderful people, and I know the leaders – they’re are very good people, but they don’t even go there.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it would be “very unwise” for European governments to retaliate.
“I think it’s a complete canard that the president will be doing this because of the Nobel prize. The president is looking at Greenland as a strategic asset for the United States,” he told reporters in Davos.
EU leaders will discuss options at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday. One option is a package of tariffs on 93 billion euros ($108 billion) of U.S. imports that could automatically kick in on February 6 after a six-month suspension.
Another option is the “Anti-Coercion Instrument” (ACI), which has never yet been used and which could limit access to public tenders, investments or banking activity or restrict trade in services, in which the U.S. has a surplus with the bloc, including in digital services.
The EU said it was continuing to engage “at all levels” with the U.S. but said the use of its ACI was not off the table.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for calm discussion between the allies, adding he did not believe Trump was considering military action to seize Greenland.
Russia declined to comment on whether the U.S. designs on Greenland were good or bad but said it was hard to disagree with experts that Trump would “go down in… world history” if he did take control of the island.
