As Denmark takes over the presidency of the European Union, Danes are more strongly pro-European than at any time in the past two decades – a shift in sentiment that can at least partly be attributed to US President Donald Trump.
An eye-opening survey published in March by Berlingske, a Danish daily newspaper, said 41% of Danes now see the United States as a threat. It also said 92% of respondents either “agree” or “mostly agree” that the Nordic nation needs to rely more on the European Union than the US for its security.
Given the recent tensions between Washington and Copenhagen, those statistics may not be surprising.
Since his return to the White House, Trump has spoken frequently and aggressively about Greenland, an autonomous crown dependency of Denmark, saying he would like the US to own it.
Vice President JD Vance and members of the Trump family have made what many see as provocative trips to and statements about the world’s largest island.
After Vance’s visit to the US military’s Pituffik Space Base in Greenland in March, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen pushed back on his claim that Denmark isn’t doing enough for defense in the Arctic, calling her country “a good and strong ally.”
Back in Trump’s first administration, too, Greenland was a hot topic. In 2019, he reportedly accused Frederiksen of making a “nasty” and “absurd” statement in discussions about the island.
Sinking trust in Trump
“Now we have a different Denmark,” she said.
“Things have dramatically changed in Denmark and our attitude toward Europe,” she said, without mentioning the president’s name directly.
She was also very clear that Denmark feels a sense of disappointment in its longtime ally.
Denmark would still like to have a strong relationship with the US, Bjerre said, “but in a situation where the US is closing itself more around itself… is threatening us with tariffs and also criticizing Europe, our freedom of expression and all sorts of other things. Of course, in that situation, we have to be stronger on our own.”
She added, “The world order, as we have known it since the Second World War, is changing and we have to deliver to that geopolitical new situation that we are standing in.”
The minister also referenced the historic ties and shared past experiences of both nations, expressing a degree of frustration, if not anger, about how that relationship has changed.
“You could not put a paper in between the US and Denmark, we have always supported the US. We went into war with our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan… Seeing us, as a country, being criticized for not being a good ally, of course, that does affect our opinion,” Bjerre said.
Per capita, Denmark lost the second-highest number of soldiers of all the US-led coalition partners fighting in Afghanistan. In total, 43 Danish soldiers died, equating to 7.82 deaths per million citizens. The US, by comparison, lost 7.96 soldiers per million.
“We used to be a very, very transatlantic country… that has plummeted,” said Friis. “There is now the feeling… we simply cannot trust him,” she said – the “him” being Trump.
‘Huge’ change in tone
The shift in Danes’ opinions coincides with Denmark taking up the rotating, six-month EU presidency.
Denmark has long worried about the EU wading into Danes’ lives, fearing in particular for its relatively unregulated labor market. It has various opt-outs on EU policy, including not joining the EU’s single currency, the euro.
“We do things differently to other European nations,” said Bjerre.
Politicians and citizens used to fear that the EU “would become too dominating and too powerful,” Friis said, but now “the fear is the complete opposite.” Danes feel the bloc is “too weak” to deal with Putin to the East and Trump to the West, she said.
Friis also described the prime minister’s shift in tone as “huge,” saying Frederiksen used to be “very skeptical towards the EU.”
In June, Frederiksen announced that Denmark was quitting the so-called “Frugal Four,” an informal group of EU nations that had pushed to limit common spending, saying that “the most important thing is to rearm Europe.”
Laying out Denmark’s priorities for the EU presidency later that month, she reiterated that view, saying: “Now more than ever Europe needs to step up and stand together. We have to build an even stronger Europe, a more secure Europe where we are able to protect our democracies.”
EU-commissioned, biannual polls show a clear trend of increased trust in the EU over the past two decades, rising from 46% in spring 2005 to 74% this past spring. Steeper increases can be seen during Trump’s first term, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and as Trump’s second term began.
The war in Ukraine has had a significant influence on Danish views on the EU, Friis said.
“The very fact that you had a war in our backyard has sort of created a completely new sort of atmosphere around security in Denmark, people are worried. People are prepping now because they’re scared about what could happen also to our own security,” she said.
Bjerre said Copenhagen’s EU presidency would prioritize a “stronger Europe and a changing world,” with Europe having a real focus on security.
Denmark takes the European helm, then, at a time of increasingly pro-European sentiment among its own population and a wider recognition in Europe that it must do more to stand on its own. The problem is that some of Europe’s most pressing issues – Ukraine, trade tariffs and security – mean talking to the US and Trump. And at the moment, there may not be much love lost between the two.
