The dispute between the United States and Europe over the future of Greenland is not the first time the allies have been at odds, the Associated Press said. The AP described repeated disagreements since World War II that have triggered diplomatic crises across the Atlantic.
The timeline begins with the Suez crisis in 1956, when France, the United Kingdom and Israel invaded Egypt. The AP said the invasion aimed to topple Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and to take back control of the Suez Canal, and that the U.S. responded with heavy diplomatic and economic pressure to stop it.
The AP said the U.S. intervention severely strained Washington’s relations with London and Paris. It described those governments as key allies during the Cold War and characterized the episode as a milestone in Europe’s waning postwar influence.
In the Vietnam War era, the AP said European countries, except France, gave diplomatic backing to the U.S. but refused to provide troops. The AP also said street protests in Europe against the war carried significant political costs for governments, forcing leaders to reconcile their support for Washington with erosion in domestic popularity—adding strain to trans-Atlantic relations.
The AP then pointed to the Euromissile crisis, saying Russia deployed SS-20 missiles that could quickly hit targets in Western Europe. It said the deployment compelled NATO to install U.S. Pershing nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles and cruise missiles in Europe to maintain the nuclear arms balance, a step that the AP said sparked uproar and deepened fears of a new arms race.
The AP said huge anti-nuclear peace demonstrations in the 1980s filled the streets of European capitals, with protesters often aiming their ire at Washington.
The timeline moved to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which the AP said sparked a major crisis in relations with Europe, especially France and Germany. The AP said the two countries refused to support the attack on President Saddam Hussein’s government, and that Washington officials rebuked Paris and Berlin afterward.
The AP said U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld referred to France and Germany as “Old Europe” and praised Eastern European countries as “New Europe.”
The AP also described extraordinary rendition as part of the U.S. “war on terror,” saying the U.S. captured and sometimes kidnapped suspects and then transferred them to locations in countries where they were interrogated and often tortured outside the reach of U.S. law. The AP said some European governments were complicit in the program and that a public outcry forced political leaders to denounce the practice.
Turning to more recent policy, the AP said when Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, he upended three years of American policy toward Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The AP said Trump spoke warmly of Vladimir Putin, was cold toward Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and significantly reduced U.S. military aid for Kyiv.
The AP said alarmed European leaders, seeing their own security at stake in Ukraine, pressed Trump to be on Ukraine’s side. It further said the Trump administration set out a new national security strategy last December portraying European allies as weak, describing them as scathing toward their migration and free speech policies, suggesting they face the “prospect of civilizational erasure,” and casting doubt on their long-term reliability as American partners.
The AP’s timeline also described worsening relations on trade, saying Trump threatened Europe last July with heavy tariffs. It said Trump initially announced tariffs of 30% on the 27-nation European Union, described as the biggest trading partner of the United States, and that both sides later agreed to a trade framework setting a 15% tariff on most goods.