The leaders of multiple European nations jointly issued a statement this week insisting that the future of Greenland would be determined only by the island’s people and Denmark, which rules over the territory. There was no direct condemnation of the country and the individual whose imperial aims had necessitated that statement: the United States of America and its president, Donald Trump, respectively. Nevertheless, their firm opposition to the increasingly shrill calls from within Mr Trump’s orbit for the US to take over Greenland contrasted sharply with the positions most European leaders took just days earlier, after American special forces abducted Nicolás Maduro, the president of the sovereign nation of Venezuela, and carried him away to New York from Caracas. Then, the same European capitals largely endorsed Mr Maduro’s removal from power, in effect justifying America’s actions, even if they referred to the United Nations Charter as a footnote to convey that they would have liked the US to carry out regime change in a cleaner, more sophisticated, way. But clean and sophisticated are not Mr Trump’s way. And the hypocrisy of many nations in selectively remembering the right of all nations to their sovereignty is now coming home to roost.

While Israel was levelling Gaza, killing tens of thousands of people and expanding its occupation and annexation of the West Bank, Europe, Canada and US administrations before Mr Trump’s government only paid lip service to human rights while frequently citing Israel’s right to self-defence to give the aggressor cover. The Global South has also had double standards. After Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America were — especially initially — hesitant to publicly criticise Moscow, a friend that had stood by several of them in their early post-colonial journeys. Like the West with Mr Maduro, they cited the UN Charter and the need to respect the sovereignty of nations but only rarely went beyond timid homilies. India, too, has been guilty of this. Yet, as Mr Trump’s hunger for overseas operations that he can portray as victories grows, no one is immune to the risks of history’s most powerful military trying to decapitate governments, demolish states, and gobble up territories. Mr Trump’s administration is salivating over Greenland’s vast mineral resources and its strategic location in the Arctic. Its appetite has been vetted by the ease with which it could get away with Mr Maduro’s kidnapping. For that, the rest of the world has only itself to blame.