Europe’s hard-Right has spent years borrowing from Donald Trump: his language, his campaign techniques, his hostility to institutions, and the claim that national sovereignty can be defended only by breaking political conventions.
Trump’s second presidency has changed the calculation. The Greenland episode has exposed a basic contradiction: “America First” does not translate into “Europe First”, and it collides directly with the sovereignty principle that European nationalists claim to champion.
That is why George Simion’s Washington appearance has drawn attention beyond the cake itself. The AUR leader attended a gala at Washington’s Kennedy Center hosted by Republicans for National Renewal, received an award, and was filmed beside Republican members of Congress as a cake shaped like Greenland — glazed with a US flag motif — was cut and served. Romanian outlet Digi24 reported the event and the award, while The Independent described the scene and quoted a partygoer warning it was “going to be an international incident”.
Trump’s Greenland rhetoric has moved from brinkmanship to tactical retreat. After threatening escalating tariffs on exports from eight European countries, he told reporters in Davos that he would not impose the measures due to take effect on 1 February, said he would not use force, and claimed the US and Nato had agreed “the framework of a future deal” covering Greenland and the wider Arctic. The shift helped to defuse the immediate dispute, but the substance remains unsettled, including what agreement could satisfy his earlier talk of outright “ownership”.
Several of Europe’s best-known populists have reacted by putting distance between themselves and Trump. A Reuters report described far-right and populist figures criticising Trump over Greenland, and The Washington Post reported a broader split among leaders who have historically treated Trump as politically useful. Le Monde reported that France’s National Rally has toughened its tone towards Trump to avoid an election “trap” ahead of 2027, with Jordan Bardella publicly condemning US threats against a European state.
Nigel Farage illustrates the dilemma. He has long marketed his proximity to Trump as proof of access and influence. Yet the Greenland row has pulled him in two directions at once: defending Trump’s strategic logic while trying to avoid the charge that he is endorsing pressure on a European ally. The Guardian reported Farage saying the world would be a “better, more secure place” if the US took over Greenland, while also insisting Greenlanders’ views should be respected. Other coverage has reported Farage warning that a US invasion of Greenland would be catastrophic for Nato.
The most revealing break came from within the European Parliament’s own hard-Right ecosystem. Anders Vistisen — a Danish People’s Party MEP in the Patriots for Europe group — used the Parliament floor to deliver an obscenity-laced rejection of Trump’s Greenland posture, stating that Greenland was not for sale and telling Trump to “f**k off”. The intervention went viral, and the chair publicly rebuked him for the language. The substance of the message, however, mattered: a nationalist politician whose brand rests on Danish sovereignty judged Trump’s approach sufficiently corrosive to warrant a public rupture.
This is the context in which Simion’s decision looks less like networking and more like misjudgement. While peers attempt to demonstrate independence from Trump’s pressure tactics, Simion placed himself in a staged tableau that treated Greenland’s status as entertainment. The Independent’s description of the atmosphere — phones out, cameras rolling, the “international incident” remark — underlines that it was designed for circulation.
Simion has argued that cutting a cake does not amount to policy. Romanian reporting said he accused critics of “disinformation” and “hypocrisy”. But politics is often about choosing the frame. At a moment when European populists are trying to show they are nationalists, not clients of an American president, Simion chose visibility inside a Trump-adjacent spectacle built around territorial acquisition rhetoric directed at an EU and Nato partner.
The consequences are practical. First, it offers Simion’s domestic opponents an easy line: that he seeks legitimacy abroad by appearing at events whose optics cut against Romania’s alliance messaging. Second, it creates a problem for AUR’s attempt to look government-ready. Reuters has reported AUR leading Romanian polling; parties in that position are usually expected to reduce unforced foreign-policy errors, not multiply them.
Third, the episode reinforces an emerging pattern: Trump is no longer merely a culture-war reference point for Europe’s hard-Right. He is a source of direct strategic friction — tariffs, pressure on allies, and demands that force European politicians to pick between transatlantic loyalty and nationalist branding. When a Danish far-right MEP publicly insults Trump over Greenland, the warning to other nationalists is plain: aligning too closely with Trump turns “sovereignty” into a slogan that collapses under the first real test.
Simion’s Greenland cake appearance does not prove policy alignment. It does show willingness to be used in an image that other European populists have decided is politically dangerous.
