Shortly before Donald Trump stood up in Davos to deliver his latest tirade against Europe, I asked a senior German official if it would be correct to describe the United States no longer as an unreliable partner but as a potential enemy. “Absolutely,” he replied. I had written as much in recent months, but it was salutary, if scary, to hear the assertion made with such clarity.
Has the penny dropped? I remain to be convinced. Trump’s apparent climbdown over an invasion of Greenland and tariffs on anyone who might have the temerity to object gives rise to cautious optimism. But nobody has a clue whether he means it, what his intentions are on this latest fracas, and where his malign attention will turn to next.
Sir Keir Starmer patted himself on the back (as he tends to do when anything goes right), saying that British “pragmatism” had played an important part. Emmanuel Macron let it be known that his blunter approach also paid dividends. Nato chief Mark Rutte seems to have embedded a few micro-moments of sanity into the American President’s ear when they met on Wednesday evening.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz earned some rare praise from Trump in his speech. Finland’s President, Alexander Stubb, “Trump whisperer” and fellow golfer, occasionally gets through to him. Good cop, bad cop, word in the ear and all that – but none of this constitutes a strategy. These are well-meaning leaders grappling as best they can with one of the great crises of a generation. But they are playing according to redundant rules.
The EU, Nato and various coalitions of the willing are merely responding to Trump’s latest whirlwind. Europe struggles to accept the reality – the end of the transatlantic alliance.
The HDMS Knud Rasmussen patrol ship of the Danish Navy near Nuuk this week (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)It is there in black and white in the US government’s national security strategy. That document denounces all that the EU and the West stand for and exhorts the far-right to seize power wherever it can. “America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism,” it reads.
It is the very embodiment of enmity. Trump is following it in letter and spirit.
Yet even when it was published two months ago, several leaders sought to play down the severity of the situation. They did the same throughout 2025 even as Trump was making clear his admiration for Vladimir Putin and his contempt for Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, on whom he continues to push a ceasefire of capitulation.
The prospect of seizing land that belongs to a Nato member state appears to have finally brought Europe to its senses, as elucidated so icily and forensically on the Davos stage by Mark Carney. The world was going through a “rupture”, not “transition”. Nostalgia for the good old days of American leadership didn’t represent policy; the old order was not coming back. The Canadian Prime Minister, now clearly one of the leaders of the Rest of the West, warned his colleagues that compliance (with Trump’s bullying) would not buy them safety.
Carney knows the dangers as his military has reportedly war-gamed an invasion from the south, and the conclusions are sobering. It would take US forces barely two days to capture the main installations; resistance would take the form of Afghan-style insurgency. The very fact that the exercise was commissioned speaks volumes. The mayhem of the past 12 months shows that when it comes to Trump it would be foolish to rule anything out, no matter how previously unimaginable.
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The likes of Nigel Farage and others on the populist and far right across Europe have been embarrassed by the Greenland affair, forced to issue awkward utterances about European sovereignty. If he is genuinely toning down his threats, they will be relieved. They can continue working methodically with their mentors, Trump and Putin, to undermine liberal democracy from within.
An element of calmness constitutes an even greater threat than the hysteria of the past week. Trump is a tactician as well as a thug. He is poised, ready to strike, again and again. Europe needs to find the strength to resist; it will be a long haul.
John Kampfner’s latest book, Braver New World, is published on 16 April
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