MUNICH — U.S. lawmakers left the Munich Security Conference on Sunday confident they had patched the wound inflicted on the trans-Atlantic partnership by President Donald Trump when he toyed with invading Greenland.
But they conceded that his threats had indelibly altered relations with Europe and left scars that Congress would have to reckon with, leading some rising Democrats to chart a path for a more cooperative future beyond Trump’s “America First” policies.
Senators, and a handful of House members who bought last-minute tickets to Munich after Speaker Mike Johnson canceled their chamber’s official convoy, said Greenland dominated their conversations over the three-day security summit. The Trump administration and European leaders are continuing to negotiate on the issue of America obtaining sovereignty over some part of Greenland, the island territory controlled by Denmark, a NATO ally, for military bases.
“If I were to draw a cartoon,” said the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, of his meetings over the weekend, “it would be a European saying, ‘Greenland, Greenland, Greenland, Greenland.’”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the issue of Greenland had “distracted in ways that I don’t think that any of us could have anticipated,” drawing attention away from urgent issues, including how to bring an end to the war in Ukraine and counter China’s global influence. Murkowski added: “This is not the way the United States should lead.”
Lawmakers from both parties agreed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech in Munich left Europeans breathing sighs of relief. And the question of whether the United States would still try to take full control of Greenland, either by purchase or invasion, was “put to bed” at the conference, said Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
But Congress has only so much sway when Trump can detonate days or weeks of diplomacy with a single post to his social media platform.
American lawmakers conceded that calming European anxieties over Greenland was the easy part.
Asked if the issue of whether Europe could still trust the United States as a reliable trade and defense partner had been put to rest, Shaheen said: “No.”
“That’s going to take some time,” she added.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.