Trump’s ‘big stick’ approach unnerves U.S. allies: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, we bring you the latest developments from the ICE-related shooting in Minneapolis. Plus, Andrea Mitchell examines how Europe is responding as President Donald Trump again sets his sights on Greenland.

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— Adam Wollner

Minneapolis woman shot and killed by ICE officer

By Minyvonne Burke, Julia Ainsley and Suzanne Gamboa

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a woman today during an immigration-related operation in Minneapolis in which she did not appear to be the target, local and federal officials said.

Dueling narratives emerged over what led to the shooting. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed the woman “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.” President Donald Trump also defended the actions of the ICE officer involved in the fatal shooting.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey pushed back on the administration’s narrative in a news conference, saying, “they are already trying to spin this as an action of self defense,” referring to ICE. “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is b—s—.”

“To ICE, get the f— out of Minneapolis,” Frey added. “We do not want you here.”

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Trump’s ‘big stick’ approach unnerves U.S. allies

Analysis by Andrea Mitchell

If President Donald Trump wanted to get worldwide attention for the “big stick” the U.S. is now wielding in the Western Hemisphere, he’s accomplished it.

After the administration’s lightning-bolt military extraction of Nicolás Maduro and his wife from Caracas, Venezuela, Trump’s warnings to Colombia and Cuba were striking enough. But it was the threatening language about Greenland from Trump and his aide Stephen Miller that had the midnight oil burning in capitals from Copenhagen to Madrid.

Trump has been talking since his re-election about the strategic importance of controlling Greenland, a Danish territory, to protect against Russian and Chinese intrusions in the Arctic. Denmark, a NATO ally, pushed back hard. Following his successful military operation in Venezuela, Trump reignited his push, saying, “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you.”

Miller then turned the flare-up into a diplomatic bonfire, saying, “Obviously Greenland should be part of the United States and so that’s a conversation that we’re going to have as a country.” And his wife, Katie Miller, posted on X a map of Greenland covered with the U.S. flag.

That drew attention around the world. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen took all of this seriously enough to issue a statement saying, “If the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops, including NATO, and thus the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War.”

The rest of Europe took notice, too. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and England issued a rare joint statement pointing out that the U.S. and Denmark have had a defense agreement since 1951, underscoring that Europe would defend Denmark’s territory against any such violation of the U.N. charter.

It was left to Secretary of State Marco Rubio to play cleanup. But after an urgent briefing, the Gang of Eight — a group of top House and Senate congressional leaders — were not appeased. Asked about the administration’s threats against Greenland, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, “The idea that you want to talk about completely destroying America’s reputation and our alliances … this is beyond the theater of the absurd,” calling it “outrageous” and “mind-boggling.”

Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell also weighed in, calling any use of force against a U.S. ally “a catastrophic act of strategic self-harm to America and its global influence.” The White House noted in a statement yesterday that using the military to acquire Greenland was “always an option.”

But perhaps the most telling comment came from Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s inside man in the Ukraine negotiations with the U.S., Kirill Dmitriev, who posted a quote from Miller on X: “We live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. … These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

In other words, what is good for Trump in his hemisphere is also good for Putin in his sphere of influence.

➡️ Related: Republican leaders push back on Trump’s openness to using the military to take Greenland, by Scott Wong, Sahil Kapur, Melanie Zanona and Frank Thorp V

The latest on Trump’s foreign policy:

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Owen Auston-Babcock.

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