Danish Intelligence Report Raises Concerns About U.S.
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A new document cites Washington’s shifting strategic priorities and growing pressure on allies under President Trump as sources of uncertainty for Denmark.
Denmark’s military intelligence service raised concerns for the first time about the United States in its annual threat assessment, saying in a report released Wednesday that shifts in American policy are generating new uncertainties for Denmark’s security.
The report points to the United States’ use of tariffs against allies and its intensified activity in the Arctic, and raises many of the same concerns that European leaders have voiced about the direction of President Trump’s America-first foreign policy.
“The United States uses economic power, including threats of high tariffs, to enforce its will, and no longer rules out the use of military force, even against allies,” the report said.
“The United States uses economic power, including threats of high tariffs, to enforce its will, and no longer rules out the use of military force, even against allies,” the report said.
Washington’s growing focus on competition with China, the report added, “creates uncertainty about its role as the primary guarantor of security in Europe.”
The report lands at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Europe. Just last week, the Trump administration released a national security strategy paper of its own that called on European nations to take “primary responsibility” for their own defense and warned that Europe was facing the “stark prospect of civilizational erasure.”
It said the United States should be “cultivating resistance” across Europe by supporting political parties that fight against migration and promote nationalism. Many of those political forces are on the extreme right and have been considered a threat to European democracies.
That American shift has created a “dilemma” for Europe, said Thomas Ahrenkiel, the head of the Danish Defense Intelligence Service, the agency that wrote the 64-page document. In public remarks accompanying the report, he emphasized that the United States remains Denmark’s “closest partner and ally,” despite the increasingly hostile tone from the Trump administration.