Peter Mandelson has accused European leaders including Keir Starmer of a “histrionic” reaction to Donald Trump’s plan to take over Greenland, arguing that without “hard power and hard cash” they will continue to slide into unimportance in the “age of Trump”. But in an article for the Spectator, Mandelson argued that the reaction to Trump’s manoeuvres exposed a “growing geopolitical impotence” in Europe, urging Starmer and other European leaders to use “hard power and hard cash” to increase their relevance. The former US ambassador argued that Trump would not invade Greenland, because he did not need to. “President Trump is not some populist disruptor bent on destroying it; it ceased to have meaning before he was elected. Mandelson said he believed European leaders had not “even now … adjusted to the revolution under way”, and were “guilty of a lazy interpretation of ‘America First’ to mean ‘America Alone’”, despite US interventions in Ukraine and Gaza.

Source: The Guardian January 08, 2026 13:27 UTC