Alliance between USA and NATO faces rare perils

US President Donald Trump has pitched NATO into what could become its worst-ever crisis by threatening new tariffs against US allies that oppose his grab for Greenland against the will of its people, reports CNN. 

Whether the world's relative peace is endangered by the fracturing of its most powerful military alliance will partly depend on whether Republicans in Congress show rare resolve in challenging their incorrigible President. 

Another key factor is whether European leaders, who responded to the latest escalation with steely unity, will threaten consequences for Trump and the US. The European Union is a huge trade bloc, and retaliation could hammer US stock markets that Trump touts as a barometer of economic well-being. But trade reprisals or limiting military cooperation could end up damaging America's allies more than their protector. 

European Union ambassadors held emergency consultations in Brussels on Sunday, and several leaders of NATO allies who are friendly with Trump called to express resolve over Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory. 

There is palpable alarm on both sides of the Atlantic that NATO could collapse. Such a previously unthinkable scenario would represent a historic win for Russia and China and represent perhaps the most destabilizing outcome of Trump's two White House terms. 

There is also concern in Congress about Trump's antics. But are there sufficient senior Republicans so protective of NATO, a bedrock of US global power, that they'd gamble on an exceedingly rare breach with him? Cracks have emerged in Trump's power base in Congress - notably over the Jeffrey Epstein files - but he remains feared by many GOP lawmakers. 

Ultimately, however, the parlous fate of the alliance rests on a president who sees US military power as his to wield without legal or constitutional constraints and who disdains NATO as a protection racket. 

Acquiring Greenland would be a legacy item greater than putting his name on the Kennedy Center or building a new White House ballroom; it would place him alongside Thomas Jefferson and William McKinley as presidents who expanded the territory of the United States.