COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The United States is using its economic power to “assert its will” and threaten military force against friend and foe alike, a Danish intelligence agency said in a new report.
The Danish Defense Intelligence Service, in its latest annual assessment, said Washington’s greater assertiveness under the Trump administration also comes as China and Russia seek to diminish Western, especially American, influence.
Perhaps most sensitive to Denmark — a NATO and European Union member country, and a U.S. ally — is growing competition between those great powers in the Arctic. U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed a desire to see Greenland, a semiautonomous and mineral-rich territory of Denmark, become part of the United States, a move opposed by Russia and much of Europe.
“The strategic importance of the Arctic is rising as the conflict between Russia and the West intensifies, and the growing security and strategic focus on the Arctic by the United States will further accelerate these developments,” said the report, published Wednesday.
The assessment also follows the release last week of a new Trump administration national security strategy that depicts European allies as weak and aims to reassert America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is worried about NATO’s activities in the Arctic and will respond by strengthening its military capability in the polar region.
The findings and analyses in the report echo a string of recent concerns, notably in Western Europe, about an increasingly go-it-alone approach by the United States, which under Trump’s second term has favored bilateral deals and partnerships at the expense of multilateral alliances like NATO.
“For many countries outside the West, it has become a viable option to forge strategic agreements with China rather than the United States,” read the report, which was written in Danish. “China and Russia, together with other like-minded states, are seeking to reduce Western – and particularly US – global influence.”
“At the same time, uncertainty has grown over how the United States will prioritize its resources in the future,” it added. “This gives regional powers greater room for maneuver, enabling them to choose between the United States and China or to strike a balance between the two.”
The Trump administration has raised concerns about respect for international law with its series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean — part of a stepped-up pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
Trump has also refused to rule out military force in Greenland, where the United States already has a military base.
“The United States is leveraging economic power, including threats of high tariffs, to assert its will, and the possibility of employing military force – even against allies – is no longer ruled out,” the report said.