Denmark has identified the United States as a potential security concern for the first time in an annual report published by an intelligence agency, providing further evidence of the increasingly fraught transatlantic alliance between Europe and the United States.
The report, compiled by the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (DDIS), warned that the United States is “using economic power, including the threat of high tariffs, to enforce its will and no longer precludes the use of military force, even against allies.”
The assessment is part of the service’s broader analysis of how “great powers increasingly prioritize their own interests and use force to achieve their goals.”
CNN has reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in Washington for comment.
Apart from warnings about the United States, the report primarily focuses on the strategic threats posed by Russia and China, and the instability posed by China’s rise and associated changes in global power.
The report notes that the “military threat to NATO from Russia is increasing” and concerns for the Danes are compounded by “uncertainty over the role of the United States as a guarantor of European security.”
Denmark’s normally friendly relations with its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies were strained earlier this year when US President Donald Trump expressed interest in gaining control of Greenland, an autonomous, resource-rich and strategically important Arctic island that is legally part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Although President Trump has not reconsidered the idea in months, he has signaled that he intends to emphasize the relationship between the United States and its European partners after decades of close cooperation since the end of World War II.
The relationship has come under renewed scrutiny as the recent Ukraine peace talks and, most dramatically, the Trump administration’s unprecedentedly confrontational National Security Strategy released on Friday exposed the differing strategic priorities of the United States and Europe.
And for Denmark, the threats posed by Russia and the United States are intertwined. The report claims that “Russia will seek to exploit the US desire for an early end to the (Ukraine) war to sow divisions between the US and Europe.”
