Former UK minister Peter Mandelson warned Europe is sliding into unimportance after a “histrionic” reaction to Trump’s plan to take over Greenland.
Lord Mandelson stated that Trump had accomplished "more in a day than orthodox diplomacy was able to achieve in the past decade" when he apprehended Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in his first political remarks since being fired as Britain's ambassador to Washington last year.
The British prime minister, who has had to walk a diplomatic tightrope since the US arrested Maduro, is certain to be criticized for the action. He signed a statement this week urging the US president to respect Danish sovereignty over Greenland in response to a White House statement that stated the US was considering "a range of options" in an attempt to acquire Greenland and that using the US military to do so was "always an option."
In a phone discussion with Trump on Wednesday night, Starmer "set out his position on Greenland," according to Downing Street, which did not provide any additional information about the exchange. Starmer has consistently stated that Greenland's future must be an issue for the territory and Denmark alone, even if he has refrained from criticizing Trump's actions in Venezuela.
However, Mandelson urged Starmer and other European leaders to employ "hard power and hard cash" to become more relevant in an article for the Spectator, claiming that the response to Trump's maneuvers revealed a "growing geopolitical impotence" in Europe.
Trump wouldn't invade Greenland, according to the former US ambassador, since he didn't need to.
“What will happen is that the threats to arctic security posed by China and Russia will crystallise in European minds, performative statements about ‘sovereignty’ and Nato’s future will fade, and serious discussion will take over,”
he said.
“The bigger issue is how both sides of the western coin – America and Europe – are going to establish a modus vivendi in this age of Trump.”
Mandelson stated that the "rules-based system" has not existed for a long time, despite the fact that UK ministers have condemned the "disintegration" of the international rules-based system and Starmer has emphasized his lifelong support for international law in the wake of the US capture of the Venezuelan president.
“President Trump is not some populist disruptor bent on destroying it; it ceased to have meaning before he was elected. He has not single-handedly broken up the postwar ‘global order’: if that ever fully existed, it started to evaporate two decades ago when China emerged as a great power contesting the US-led unipolar world,”
he said.
Despite US operations in Gaza and Ukraine, Mandelson claimed that European politicians had not "even now... adjusted to the revolution under way" and were "guilty of a lazy interpretation of 'America First' to mean 'America Alone."
He said that European leaders would be better off "asking themselves why the US is making an adjustment and how they, as America's allies, can mitigate its consequences" rather than wailing.
He said:
“This will mean accepting that Trump’s decisive approach when faced with real-world situations is preferable to the hand-wringing and analysis paralysis that has characterised some previous US administrations or, indeed, the deadlock and prevarication that so often characterise the UN and the EU respectively.”
What has Denmark officially said about Trump's Greenland remarks?
Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen issued a direct reproach of President Trump's Greenland reflections, stating the US has" no right to add" any part of the Danish Kingdom and prompting Washington to" stop the pitfalls" against a NATO supporter.
Frederiksen emphasized in a January 5, 2026, X post that agitating US preemption" makes absolutely no sense," pressing Denmark's NATO class as sufficient security while rejecting territorial claims outright. Greenland's Prime Minister Jens- Frederik Nielsen echoed this, calling rhetoric linking the islet to Venezuela" discourteous" and affirming" we are a people, a country, a republic" not for trade.
A common statement reiterated Greenland belongs to its people, demanding respect for transnational law through proper channels rather than social media posts like Katie Miller's flag-over-map image identified" SOON."