As the Greenland crisis deepens, US President Donald Trump has accused UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer of “GREAT STUPIDITY”, intensifying an extraordinary diplomatic barrage that European officials say marks a sharp departure from established norms of transatlantic engagement.
The remarks came amid a fresh series of posts on Trump’s Truth Social platform, in which the US president published screenshots of private messages from European leaders, shared AI-generated images depicting the United States planting its flag on Greenland, and mocked allied governments’ military capabilities.
Within hours, Trump accused Starmer of reckless judgment over Britain’s handling of the Chagos Islands settlement, despite the arrangement having received prior approval from Washington. He also derided France’s President Emmanuel Macron, NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte, and other European leaders, framing their diplomatic engagement as weakness rather than partnership.
European capitals say the episode has compounded an already fragile relationship with Washington. Officials point to Trump’s renewed threats of punitive tariffs, his public support for far-right populist movements, and his stance on Ukraine as evidence of a deliberate strategy to pressure allies through humiliation rather than negotiation.
Nathalie Tocci, director of Rome’s Institute for International Affairs, described the approach as “the weaponisation of ridicule”, arguing that mockery and belittlement are being deployed to force submission where conventional diplomacy would once have relied on persuasion.
The Greenland issue has emerged as a particularly sensitive trigger. Trump has repeatedly declared that US control of the Arctic territory is essential to global security, dismissing Denmark’s defence efforts as negligible and warning that European military exercises on the island could attract retaliatory tariffs. In one post, he claimed that “the world is not secure unless we have complete and total control of Greenland”.
Former German ambassador to Washington Emily Haber said the episode represented “almost every norm of traditional diplomacy being broken at once”, adding that the scale and tone of the rhetoric marked a new high in transatlantic strain.
While Trump’s confrontational style towards allies is not new—he previously clashed publicly with Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau and Theresa May—European officials say the combination of mockery, digital manipulation and explicit territorial ambition has elevated the crisis to a different level.
For Europe, the concern is no longer rhetorical volatility alone, but whether ridicule has become a permanent instrument of US foreign policy—one capable of reshaping alliances, trade relations and security assumptions across the Atlantic.
