The Trump Administration is pursuing highly controversial strategic goals that are intended to permanently reshape bilateral relations with the Kingdom of Denmark. It is therefore remarkable that the Trump Administration failed to comprehensively re-evaluate and realign the relevant business operations of the U.S. Department of State before launching foreign policy torpedoes in the direction of the strategic alliance between the Kingdom of Denmark and the United States. The Trump Administration did not even take a moment to rename the U.S. Consulate in Nuuk to the U.S. Consulate in Greenland in order to promote naming consistency with the U.S. Consulate General in Curaçao – another overseas country and territory of a NATO Ally. If the Trump Administration is serious about achieving its desired outcomes in Greenland, then it needs to ensure that it has the right overseas diplomatic posture in Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands. From a management perspective, the Executive Office of the President should therefore direct the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to take the following actions.

First, the Trump Administration should direct Secretary Rubio to more urgently re-evaluate and realign the U.S. diplomatic footprint around the world. For example, it should not take the U.S. Department of State months to reach the conclusion that there is no compelling reason to designate the U.S. diplomatic posts in places like Samoa, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu as bilateral embassies. It is clear that they are Embassies In Name Only (EINOs). Given the relatively low investment that the U.S. Government made in those diplomatic posts under the Biden Administration, it would be much more congruent to refer to those “embassies” as consulate generals. Similarly it should be obvious that there is no compelling reason to designate the U.S. diplomatic post in Greenland as a mere consulate. Given the relative importance that the Trump Administration places on changing the status quo in U.S. relations with Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands, the U.S. Department of State should immediately re-designate the U.S. Consulate in Nuuk as a consulate general and then resource it accordingly. Otherwise, the desired outcomes of the Trump Administration will prove difficult to achieve in practice.

Second, the Trump Administration should radically depart from precedent in the case of the appointment of Consul Generals. Rather than allow these positions to be filled outside of the Article II constitutional provisions by the U.S. Department of State, the President of the United States should move to nominate and then seek confirmation for the consul generals from the U.S. Senate. Such a move would enable President Donald Trump to seek political appointments for these sensitive diplomatic posts. At the same time, it would establish a new precedent within the U.S. Government that would grant the U.S. Congress more control over who is responsible for advancing the U.S. national security and foreign policy interests in these sensitive diplomatic posts in the future.

Third, the Trump Administration should immediately nominate a trusted political actor as U.S. Consul General to Greenland. The Trump Administration should then work with Chairman of the Senate foreign Relations Committee, Senator James Risch (R-Idaho), to quickly schedule confirmation hearings for the nomination for U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark, Ken Howery, and whomever is nominated for U.S. Consul General to Greenland so that there is only a minimal delay in their confirmations. That sort of cross-branch coordination would ensure that the Trump Administration has individuals in both diplomatic posts with the domestic political power to be able to advance the national interests of the United States as determined by the Office of the President of the United States. That is critical as neither the current U.S. Chargé d’affaires in Copenhagen nor U.S. Consul in Nuuk possess sufficient domestic political power to be able to pursue the strategic objectives that have been set by The White House. They are caretaker officials who know that their civilian careers are on the line if they make one mistake. From a management perspective, it seems safe to assume that those are not the kind of people that President Trump would want to be running point on convincing a constituent country of an allied independent state to become a dependent state of the United States.