Trump’s Greenland threats prompt ‘extraordinary meeting’ of European leaders
The Greenlandic flag flies over houses, Jan. 17, 2026, in Nuuk, Greenland. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — The leaders of all 27 European Union nations will meet for an “extraordinary meeting” later this week, European Council President Antonio Costa said on Sunday, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s escalating pressure campaign to acquire Greenland.
Costa said he had called the meeting due to the “significance of recent developments.”
European leaders are mobilizing after Trump on Saturday announced a 10% tariff to be imposed on all goods sent to the U.S. from eight NATO nations — Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands and Finland — that recently sent small contingents of troops to Greenland to take part in military exercises there.
Costa said recent conversations with European leaders had reconfirmed their “strong commitment” to international law, Arctic security through NATO and solidarity with Denmark and Greenland in the face of Trump’s continued effort to acquire the Arctic island.
European leaders also agreed that “tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and are incompatible with the EU-U.S. trade agreement,” Costa said, noting the bloc’s “readiness to defend ourselves against any form of coercion” and to engage “constructively with the US on all issues of common interest.”
An EU Council spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that the summit would be an in-person meeting in Brussels.
Trump said the new tariffs will come into force on Feb. 1 and will increase to 25% on June 1. The president said the measures would remain in place until the U.S. is able to purchase Greenland.
Greenland is a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Trump first raised the prospect of acquiring the minerals-rich island in his first term. Danish and Greenlandic politicians have repeatedly rebuffed such proposals.
Trump’s new tariffs raise the risk of a fresh transatlantic trade war. A French official confirmed to ABC News on Monday that French President Emmanuel Macron “will request the activation of the EU’s anti-coercion instrument in the event of new U.S. tariffs.”
That mechanism, colloquially known as the bloc’s “trade bazooka,” would allow the EU to impose severe restrictions on U.S. goods and services. Among the available measures would be restrictions on U.S. investment in EU nations, blocks on access to public procurement schemes and limits on intellectual property protections.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that U.S. sovereignty over the world’s largest island is necessary to ensure American security and blunt Chinese and Russian influence in the Arctic region. On Sunday, the president again claimed that only the U.S. can ensure the security of Greenland.
A 1951 defense agreement grants the U.S. military access to Greenland. Danish politicians have repeatedly expressed willingness to work with Washington to expand the American and NATO presence there.
Danish officials have also sought to head off concerns about the supposed vulnerability of the Arctic. Last year, Copenhagen announced a $6.5 billion Arctic defense package in response to U.S. criticism that it had failed to adequately protect Greenland.
But such steps do not appear to have deterred Trump, who has said he would consider taking Greenland by force if other means to acquire the land fail.
Indeed, it was the recent deployment of more NATO forces to the Arctic territory that prompted Trump to threaten a new raft of tariffs. The troops traveled to Greenland to take part in the Danish-led Operation Arctic Endurance.
Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt are scheduled to visit NATO’s headquarters in Brussels on Monday for a previously planned meeting with the alliance’s Secretary General Mark Rutte, NATO said in a press release.
On Monday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged “calm discussion” between allies. “The security of Greenland matters and it will matter more as climate change reshapes the Arctic,” he said, noting the need for “greater attention, greater investment and stronger collective defense.”
“The United States will be central to that effort, and the U.K. stands ready to contribute fully alongside our allies through NATO,” Starmer said, adding that any decisions about the territory’s future should be left to Greenlanders and Danes.
Trump’s use of tariffs against allies, Starmer continued, “is completely wrong. It is not the right way to resolve differences within an alliance. Nor is it helpful to frame efforts to strengthen Greenland’s security as a justification for economic pressure.”
ABC News’ Victoria Beaule, Tom Soufi Burridge and Kevin Shalvey contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Two people are dead from a shooting in the Cree First Nation community of Mistissini in northern Quebec, Canada, officials said, adding that it is not considered an active shooter situation.
Two men in their 30s who live in the Mistissini community were found fatally shot in a car overnight, according to Hugues Beaulieu, a spokesperson for Quebec’s provincial police, the Sureté du Québec.
Although no arrest has been made, there is no active threat to the general population, Beaulieu told ABC News, explaining that police are working under the theory that the murders were related to organized crime and drug trade.
The community’s chief, Michael Petawabano, said earlier that all schools and community buildings were closed and residents were advised to remain in their homes.
The remote town has a population of roughly 4,000 people.
“Our hearts are heavy with grief for the lives lost and the families affected by this tragedy,” Petawabano said in a statement. “We ask all community members to remain calm, stay indoors, and cooperate fully with police as they conduct their investigation.”
“The lockdown will remain in effect until law enforcement confirms it is safe to resume normal activities,” Petawabano said.
Fires are lit as protesters rally on January 8, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (Anonymous/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — An extraordinarily violent crackdown by Iranian security forces appears to have succeeded for now in driving protesters from the streets, according to activists and analysts who managed to speak with people inside the country despite the information blackout.
Demonstrations began in late December with protesters chanting in Tehran against rising inflation and the falling value of the national currency before spreading across Iran and becoming more explicitly anti-government. Authorities have shut down the internet in Iran for more than a week as security forces moved to crush the protests.
The internet blackout in Iran continues to make it very difficult to get a clear picture from the ground, but accounts are emerging from people now able to use phone lines, those few with access to working Starlink satellite terminals and Iranians who have recently left the country.
These people describe an eerie calm over Iran’s cities, where heavily armed security forces are deployed on the streets enforcing what many are describing as a de-facto curfew.
Mehdi Yahyanejad, an Iranian activist based in Washington, D.C., says he has helped send in hundreds of Starlink terminals to citizen journalists and others in Iran to help get around the government blackout.
“Unfortunately, the crackdown has been so severe the protests have pretty much come to a halt,” he said told ABC News on Thursday.
“There are security forces everywhere — there is a state of fear,” said Yahyanejad, who co-founded Net Freedom Pioneers, an anti-censorship group.
The smothering of the protests would seem to make U.S. military intervention less likely. President Donald Trump initially signaled there could be possible U.S. military action in support of protesters.
Yahyanejad said in the past few days there are still signs of dissent — people were heard chanting anti-regime slogans from windows. In some neighborhoods groups of youths have also gathered and shouted slogans, before quickly fleeing when security forces arrive.
The death toll from the crackdown continues to grow as more information comes out. The D.C.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, HRANA, now puts it at more than 3,308 protesters killed since Dec. 28.
A total of 24,266 people have been arrested in the protests since they began, including 2,107 injured protesters with serious wounds, according to HRANA.
ABC News cannot independently verify these numbers. Although there have not been signs of major demonstrations in recent days, human rights groups are continuing to verify the identities of those killed over the weeks of unrest.
The Islamic Republic has not released a death toll, but Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday that thousands have been killed. Other Iranian authorities have said before that two-thirds of those dead are “martyrs” killed by protesters that they describe as “terrorists” and “mercenary agents of Israel and the U.S.”
Yahyanejad said while there was intense anger under the surface still, he doubted the protests would restart unless the U.S. launched strikes.
“I think if there is no action from the U.S., I don’t think they are going to come back that soon,” he said.
Regarding a possible U.S. response, President Donald Trump told reporters Friday afternoon that it was not Arab and Israeli officials who convinced him not to strike Iran, but that he made the decision himself not to strike the country.
“Nobody convinced me. I convinced myself,” Trump said.
Trump applauded the Iranian regime for what he claims is the cancellation of over 800 scheduled hangings on Thursday, according to what he said “are very important sources on the other side.”
“I greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings, which were to take place yesterday (Over 800 of them), have been cancelled by the leadership of Iran,” Trump said on his social media platform Friday.
The head of Iran’s judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, had suggested Wednesday that there would be expedited trials and executions for those who have been arrested in the nationwide protests. The Iranian government has yet to comment on Trump’s claim that the scheduled hangings have been halted.
Concerns about the safety of injured protesters There are fears the arrests are just beginning as the regime moves to round up protesters, activists and independent analysts told ABC News.
Injured people are frightened to visit hospitals or clinics because security officers are waiting for them there, according to Yahyanejad.
There are also allegations that during the mass killing, some severely injured protesters were removed from hospitals and executed, according to activists and analysts. The accusations are based on videos that show bodies still intubated or with catheters, but with bullet wounds to the head.
Reviewing the pictures of the bodies, Yasser Ghorashi, an Iranian doctor, told ABC News that hospitals in Iran never send a body to the morgue without removing all medical tools and devices.
The Toronto-based Iranian doctor said that he had been in touch with doctors inside the country who reported security forces had raided hospitals and taken injured protesters.
Their accounts match videos verified by ABC News that shows security forces raiding hospitals in Ilam, a city in west Iran, during the early days of the protests.
(LONDON and KYIV, Ukraine) — Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared last week to be cautiously optimistic on the U.S. 28-point peace plan to end his invasion of Ukraine, but statements made by his emissaries in the days since then have led some analysts to believe he thinks he can get a better deal.
“I believe that it could also form the basis for a final peace settlement, but this text has not been discussed with us in detail,” Putin told his Security Council on Friday.
Momentum has appeared to be building as U.S., European, Ukrainian and Russian representatives met first in Geneva, Switzerland, and then in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. U.S. President Donald Trump has now said a deal could be “very close” and has ordered his envoy Steve Witkoff to travel to Moscow next week to present the plan to Putin.
But despite the diplomatic flurry and public optimism, many close observers of Russia still doubt Putin is actually ready to take a deal now or sees much need to compromise.
“I see nothing at the moment that would force Putin to recalculate his goals or abandon his core demands,” Tatiana Stoyanova, founder of R.Politik and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center wrote on X.
“He feels more confident than ever about the battlefield situation and is convinced that he can wait until Kyiv finally accepts that it cannot win and must negotiate on Russia’s well-known terms,” Stoyanova said. “If the Americans can help move things in that direction — fine. If not, he knows how to proceed anyway.”
Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat who quit in protest after Russia’s 2022 invasion, also told ABC News he thought it “most likely” that this latest round of negotiations will fizzle out with the combatants still far apart on key issues, as has been the case with previous efforts.
The new 19-point plan negotiated with Ukraine this week is highly unlikely to align with Moscow’s goals, Bondarev said. Even the original 28-point plan that Russia helped draw up with Witkoff “wasn’t fully acceptable to Russia in the first place,” he said, pointing to the Kremlin’s apparent hesitance to commit to the initial blueprint.
“Now it’s even less acceptable,” he said. “So, of course, they would not accept it.”
But Bondarev didn’t rule out entirely that Putin might lunge for a deal that contains many of his demands.
“Of course, we can and we should be ready for any surprises from the Kremlin,” he said. “They can still surprise sometimes.”
The original 28-point U.S. proposal that heavily favored Russia was revised down to 19, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials, during the Geneva negotiations.
Some of the most unacceptable points to Kyiv have been removed, according to sources familiar with the discussions, including a cap on Ukraine’s army and a war crimes amnesty. But it is not entirely clear what the new plan includes and the most intractable issues, including Ukraine ceding more unoccupied territory remain.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday again downplayed hopes for a deal, saying it was “too early to say” whether the warring parties are close to an accord. Russia’s deputy foreign minister has since said Moscow will not make any major concessions.
Previous rounds of talks have resoundingly failed. And, while the U.S. has been projecting hope, it’s unclear how serious Russia — which has been eking out battlefield gains — is about making peace.
“Putin does not want an agreement,” John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said at an Atlantic Council event on Tuesday. “The only agreement he wants is diktat — a Ukrainian surrender. Otherwise, he wants to continue fighting.”
“I suspect if Ukraine had accepted those dreadful 28 points, Putin would come back for more,” Herbst said. “He realizes those 28 points reflected great flexibility moving his direction on the part of the United States, and he would say, ‘See what else we can get’.”
Putin’s long march The Kremlin has indicated that the new peace plan was discussed at the summit between Putin and Trump in Alaska in August.
Putin left Alaska with Trump’s endorsement of the “fantastic relationship” between the two presidents, having successfully neutralized Trump’s previous demand he agree an immediate ceasefire and pushing off the threat of more American sanctions, while gaining the prospect of potentially lucrative bilateral economic cooperation.
Despite a nominal commitment to peace talks, as summer turned to fall, Russia only intensified its frontline offensives and expanded its long-range attacks on Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure, according to information released by Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Russian forces have captured some 350 square miles of Ukrainian territory — roughly the same area as the German capital of Berlin — since Trump and Putin sat down together in Alaska, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War think tank.
Putin has for years said that any peace deal in Ukraine must reflect the “new territorial realities” of Russian occupation of large chunks of the country. As Russian troops edge forward, Putin appears to be trying to entrench those territorial realities.
That new territory is a tiny sliver of the roughly 44,600 square miles — nearly 20% — of Ukraine controlled by Russian forces. But despite the slow rate and reportedly high human cost of Russia’s advance, independent military analysts worry it reflects a growing momentum for Moscow.
A high-profile advance around the destroyed Donetsk city of Pokrovsk and an unexpected local breakthrough on Ukraine southern Zaporizhzhia front have further burnished the Kremlin’s propaganda campaign promoting what they claim as an inevitable Russian victory.
Relentless Russian drone and missile strikes continue to kill civilians and wreak havoc on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, particularly the energy grid. Concentrated strikes on power stations and natural gas infrastructure have precipitated rolling blackouts in many parts of the country — including in Kyiv — as winter bites.
Zelenskyy’s government has also been rocked by a corruption scandal that has seen two cabinet ministers removed from their posts and figures close to the president investigated.
Bondarev said he believes Russia is repeating its strategy of delay and obfuscation. Putin is “playing for time,” he said, and “outsmarting” his Western adversaries.
“Putin says we need to remove the root causes of the war,” Bondarev said. “You cannot remove these root causes of the war just by signing some memorandum. You need to work it through. It takes a lot of experts, meetings, coordination — so it may take months. And at the same time, he will be fighting.”
“With each new tiny victory — every new village occupied, every square kilometer occupied — the Russian position will be more and more robust, less and less flexible,” Bondarev said.
Red lines “People’s expectations for how long a process like this will take are wildly exaggerated,” Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, told ABC News this week.
“I think even in the best case we are talking about months not weeks,” Charap added.
Still, Charap said, the new push by the Trump administration was positive, noting it had jumpstarted negotiations and for the first time produced a framework document that at least included almost all the core issues of the conflict.
“You have to give them credit, they have certainly shaken up the stasis which had set in,” he said. “There are conversations happening that weren’t happening a week ago.”
Ukrainian lawmakers and analysts told ABC News there remains little hope in Ukraine that Putin can be trusted to abide by the terms of any peace deal. That is why Kyiv’s demands for Western security guarantees, NATO membership and more military aid have been so central to the Ukrainian negotiating position.
Still, Yehor Cherniev — a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News that the framework established with the U.S. “is a good signal and it’s good progress in our peace negotiations, because before we were stuck.”
But some “red lines” remain, Cherniev said, “as before, about the concession of our territories or of or our sovereignty.” Ukrainian officials have said they want to leave such thorny topics to a meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy at the White House.
“I have doubts that Russia will agree with this,” Cherniev added.
Oleksandr Merezhko, another member of parliament and the chair of its foreign affairs committee, told ABC News he believes “Putin will reject this peace plan and will reiterate his maximalist demands.”
“He is not interested in peace or ceasefire — he is only interested in our surrender,” Merezhko said. “We should insist not on a ‘peace treaty’ but on a ceasefire agreement.”
Zelenskyy has consistently urged more pressure on Russia twinned with more muscular Western military aid for Kyiv. Trump has often threatened a tougher line on Moscow, but — according to Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland — it is unclear if he is willing to deliver.
“In the end, Trump is going to have to stare down Putin to get his deal in any kind of decent form,” Fried said at an event Tuesday.
But Bondarev said he sees little hope of an imminent change in U.S. strategy, suggesting that any disunity within the administration will only further strengthen Moscow’s hand.
“Western diplomacy has never tried to get the initiative, to first elaborate its own agenda and impose it on Russia,” the former diplomat said. “They only follow what Russia is doing. You can never prevail if you just follow your adversary and let him lead.”
“Trump mentioned that ‘it takes two to tango,'” he added. “But there is someone in every couple who leads and someone who follows.”
