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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Gaby Hinsliff

If it wasn’t clear before, it is now: Britain needs an escape plan from the Trump world order

Protests near the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland
Protests near the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, against the US president’s attempt take the territory, 17 January 2026. Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

One way or the other, President Trump said, he will have Greenland. Well, at least now we know it’s the other; not an invasion that would have sent young men home to their mothers across Europe in coffins, but instead another trade war, designed to kill off jobs and break Europe’s will. Just our hopes of an economic recovery, then, getting taken out and shot on a whim by our supposedly closest ally, months after Britain signed a trade deal supposed to protect us from such arbitrary punishment beatings. In a sane universe, that would not feel like a climbdown by the White House, yet by comparison with the rhetoric that had Denmark scrambling troops to Greenland last week it is.

That said, don’t underestimate the gravity of the moment.

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