U.S. President Donald Trump has drawn criticism for his aggressive stance on Greenland, linking it to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize, according to The Globe and Mail. In a text message released Monday, Trump told Norway’s Prime Minister that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace.”

Trump’s Greenland Tensions

Trump announced a 10-per-cent import tax starting in February on goods from eight nations that have rallied around Denmark and Greenland, including Norway. Those countries issued a forceful rebuke. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the bloc had “no interest to pick a fight” but would “hold our ground.”

Greenlanders have also shown resistance. Thousands marched over the weekend in protest of any effort to take over their island, according to The Globe and Mail.

Russia’s Strategic Moves

Ukrainian officials fear Russian troops are amassing again to make a final assault on Pokrovsk in the east and might see progress near Kupiansk, farther north, according to CNN. The timing is significant as Putin emerged from a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, where they discussed immortality and shared a limo with Indian leader Narendra Modi. This meeting highlighted China’s desire to parade its own bloc, according to CNN.

The practical application of this new fervor to support Russia is yet unknown, but it has increased the sense in Moscow that they have more road to travel down. They may get money, conventional military arms, souped-up hydrocarbon purchases, or just another 10,000 North Korean special forces. But Putin knows he is not alone now, and won’t be if sanctions cause his country’s economy to falter—the last remaining hope, bar internal political dissent, in the West for Russian defeat, according to CNN.

Trump’s Unpredictable Policies

Wertheim, as reported in 경향신문, described Trump’s policies as “naked imperialism,” leaving allies facing U.S. coercion. Trump has weaponized tariffs, turning them against allies as readily as adversaries. He invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to Alaska and greeted him like an old friend, defying his reputation as an “isolationist” and ordering airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Trump has given no one time to even take stock of his first year back in office. At the very start of the new year, he has launched an attack on Venezuela and is openly stoking ambitions to seize Greenland by force if necessary, according to 경향신문.

Human Rights Watch has raised concerns about the 2026 World Cup in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, noting that U.S. immigration policies and anti-human rights rhetoric under Trump are creating fear instead of the inclusive environment promised by FIFA. According to official U.S. government data, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal law enforcement agencies have arrested hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. in 2025, including many in World Cup host cities. Agents, often in masks, plainclothes, and unmarked vans, have detained people at their homes, in their vehicles, at courthouses, near schools, on streets, and in workplaces, often targeting Latino, Black, Asian, and other communities of color. Some of the people at highest risk of detention by ICE are workers, whether at their places of work or in transit.

U.S. citizens have been killed while protesting ICE arrests. The escalating attacks on immigrants in the United States, lack of clear safeguards in communities and at stadiums against abusive federal immigration enforcement, FIFA’s cancellation of anti-discrimination messaging, and threats to press freedom and the rights of peaceful protesters signal a tournament heading in the wrong direction, according to Human Rights Watch.