Trump, Greenland, and the Changing Arctic Order

Donald Trump’s fixation on Greenland has been top of the agenda for the previous weeks, but what is it really about? In this episode of What’s New?, host Serafima Andreeva speaks with Professor Andreas Østhagen (Fridtjof Nansen Institute) and Erdem Lamazhapov (Fridtjof Nansen Institute) about what the US push to acquire Greenland reveals about a shifting Arctic order.

They argue that the story is less about rare earths or “Chinese and Russian ships” than about power: spheres of influence, political symbolism, and the erosion of constraints that have long shaped Western strategy. The discussion breaks down what Washington can already do in Greenland, what it cannot legally or politically do, and why talk of coercion carries wider consequences — for NATO’s credibility, for norms around sovereignty, and for how other powers read the rules of the international system.