In the days prior to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center Daniel Fried said it best: “This has not been a good week for American diplomacy.” And indeed it was not. “We are seen as less than stable.” Indeed we are. “The bold and bad outweigh the constructive.” Indeed they do. And despite President Trump’s change of mind at the WEF regarding tariffs on eight European nations—Germany, France, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Finland—as well as military action in Greenland, Fried’s observations remain true. The “bold and bad” indeed outweigh anything constructive that might develop in the days ahead. Let us take stock.
Early in 2026, following the daring raid that captured Venezuelan strong man Nicolás Maduro, President Trump claimed publicly that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela. On the heels of that development, Mr. Trump, along with other administration spokespersons, repeated the U.S. intention to take as its own the self-governing island of Greenland for security purposes, threatening military aggression to accommodate this acquisition. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on January 6 that “The President and his team are discussing a range of options” and “utilizing the U.S. military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.” This was announced against the backdrop of European leaders in convulsion, rejecting Trump’s comments and claims about aggressively acquiring the world’s largest island and expressing their fears that the NATO alliance would thereby be destroyed.
Indeed any use of NATO troops to inhibit the U.S. would have no precedent whatsoever. In an interview with the BBC, Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, stressed that given the treaties in place that allow military installation in Greenland, the recent Trump administration statements are simply unacceptable. More damningly, he noted, “I think it [the recent Greenland development] tarnishes the image of the U.S. in our world,” given our history of responding to situations of oppression.
A meeting at the White House the week before the WEF in Davos between Trump, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lǿkke Rasmussen, and Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt did not persuade the President to abandon his position. The result of that meeting, according to the Wall Street Journal, was an “extraordinary standoff.” In response to this “standoff,” Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) said that Trump’s designs are “incinerating the hard-won trust of loyal allies in exchange for no meaningful change across the Arctic.” McConnell compared Trump’s actions, should the President in fact follow through with military action, to the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by his predecessor, stating that it would be even more disastrous. It is difficult to disagree with McConnell’s assessment.
No matter. Trump, days before the WEF in Switzerland, seemed to link his aggressive position on acquiring Greenland to the decision by the Nobel Peace Prize foundation not to award him personally the Nobel Peace Prize, which exiled NPP recipient María Machado, former Deputy of the National Assembly of Venezuela, gifted him for his recent confrontation of the Venezuelan regime. Trump informed Norway’s Prime Minister on January 18 that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace.”
And if this was not enough, before his trip to Davos, Trump posted online an image showing himself lecturing European leaders in front of a map that showed Venezuela, Canada, and Greenland covered with the Stars and Stripes of the American flag. Think of it.
French President Emmanuel Macron, to his credit, was unabashed in his response to Trump’s Greenland push and what he called “useless aggressivity.” “Now is not the time for new imperialism,” he insisted, arguing for “respect” over “bullying” and the “rule of law” over “brutality.” Macron was honest, acknowledging in a text to the President that he was in basic agreement with what the U.S was doing in Syrian and Iran, but then said matter-of-factly, “I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland.” As it was, Macron was speaking for most everyone in the free world. And as it is, NATO’s Article 1 renders illegal any threat to using force internally, while the United Nations Charter, adopted in 1945, also forbids such action. Subsequently, Macron announced that France will open a consulate in Greenland by February 6.
Moreover, Danish and Greenlandish officials have repeatedly insisted that Trump can get what he wants without actually acquiring Greenland. The question then arises, why hasn’t the Trump administration worked with (rather than against) officials of both nations in order to work out the perceived security measures of the Arctic region? As it stands, in 2023 Congress determined that the U.S. cannot withdraw from NATO without a two-thirds Senate vote. Thus, at bottom, both international law and U.S. law stand in the way of potential the Trump administration’s foolishness.
The Atlantic Council’s Daniel Fried is surely correct: “there is no good reason for the threats against Greenland and Denmark; that demand for territory is mere ugliness that, if acted on, puts the United States in the company of 19th century imperialists and the 20th century’s worst tyrants.” Greenland, it will be remembered, achieved “home rule” autonomy in 1979; in 2009 this was “upgraded” to the present “self-government” arrangement we find today. Denmark retains formal responsibility for “foreign policy, defense, and security in coordination with the government of Greenland.” Greenlanders retain Danish citizenship. The Greenland episode, sadly, echoes Trump’s earlier foolish call for Canada to become the fifty-first American state.
While Trump did his U-turn on Greenland following his meeting in Davos with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, the President’s speech at Davos did little to comfort or encourage those in attendance; it is fair (and accurate) to say that it was designed to embarrass. In that speech he depicted Denmark as “ungrateful,” stressed the European debt (including Switzerland’s very existence) to American influence, and reminded his audience both of Europe’s economic problems and of the fact that Denmark and Greenland are incapable of defending Greenland’s territory.
French Parliamentarian and human rights advocate Raphaël Glucksmann has summarized Trump’s approach to foreign policy as follows: “Trump is tough with the weak but weak with the tough” (for example, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping). This approach, argues Glucksmann, manifests itself in Trump’s Greenland tantrums, spells “suicide for the West,” and represents “an invitation for Putin to act” inasmuch as “the windows and doors are open.” In a remarkable admission on January 21, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov acknowledged that he had never even imagined the “deep crisis” occurring within NATO as a result of Trump’s actions. And former British attache in Moscow John Foreman noted, “Russia must be sitting back thinking Christmas just keeps coming.” In such a case, most tragically, Ukraine will surely fall. Putin’s mission has not changed; NATO is the one obstacle to his imperial aims.
In the end, Mr. Trump’s bullying and carping are unhelpful. One need only observe statements by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who at Davos lamented the end of the “rules based” international order—a reference not to Russia or China but to the Trump administration—and called on “mid-level powers” to unite and stand up to the “great powers” by creating a “third path.”
Russia and China are watching. This is perhaps the most important fallout, with both short-term and long-term consequences, of Mr. Trump’s unpredictable antics – antics that have been accurately described in the pages of this journal in recent days by Aaron Rhodes. This should greatly disturb those in the free world who desire the rule of law in international affairs and the inhibition of totalitarian tendencies.
What is needed on the part of the United States is true statesmanship – one in which “my own morality” and a president’s unpredictable bullying are vanquished and a desire to serve our allies, based on moral principle and our global influence (whether we like it or not), is the preeminent and guiding force.
After all, gratitude and empowering others should be the national security strategy of any political figure-head who has providentially escaped assassination twice in public office.
