Trump links Greenland threats to missing out on Nobel Prize

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. BRUSSELS—President Trump told Norway that he no longer needed to think “purely of peace" after being snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize, as European leaders scrambled to talk him out of a damaging trans-Atlantic trade war. So far, the European Union and the U.K.

have held off openly wielding retaliatory tariffs in an attempt to take the heat out of the issue so that Trump won’t follow through with his threat. The president on Saturday said he would impose a 10% tariff on Feb. 1 against European countries that stand opposed to a U.S.

plan to take over Greenland. According to the Norwegian prime minister, Trump said in a text message that the world wouldn’t be secure unless the U.S. has “Complete and Total Control of Greenland" and linked his pursuit of the world’s largest island to the fact he wasn’t awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

On Monday, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said he had responded to the message. “We pointed to the need to de-escalate," he said in a statement. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The tempered response points to a difficult reality for European nations: America is too embedded in their collective security, both economic and militarily, for them to threaten a quick punch-back. Behind the scenes, European officials are searching for ways to respond to the president without escalating the situation into a broader trade spat or capitulating on security in the face of his trade threats. The frantic diplomacy comes days after an attempted show of European strength, in which several nations sent troops to Greenland, appears to have badly backfired, prompting Trump to go on the offensive.