International law? No, “the only thing that can stop me” is “my own morality”, Donald Trump told The New York Times earlier this month.
It was the “most blunt acknowledgment yet” that the US president believes he has the “freedom to use any instrument of military, economic or political power to cement American supremacy”, said the paper. As Trump holds court in Davos today, Europe’s leaders should be in no doubt of his conviction that “national strength, rather than laws, treaties and conventions” will be the decider when “powers collide”.
Trump’s tariff-threatening show of strength in the Greenland row risks the collapse of Nato and the end of the international world order as we know it. Is there any way to counter the intimidating march of this emboldened president?
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Europe’s leaders have “responded to the latest escalation with steely unity”, said CNN’s Stephen Collinson. The EU is a “huge trade bloc” and any coordinated retaliation “could hammer US stock markets that Trump touts as a barometer of economic well-being”. But “trade reprisals” could also “end up damaging” Europe more than America.
Perhaps Trump could be made to stop short of fracturing the Nato alliance by Republican opposition in Congress or plummeting popularity with voters? “Dream on,” said Sarah Baxter, director of the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting, in The i Paper. It is not clear if there are enough Republicans willing to block a Greenland takeover or whether Trump would even change course under pressure. “Trump thinks he is unstoppable, and no longer cares what anybody thinks”, including the Maga movement “he created”. With three years left in office, he “is now more fixated on legacy than the needs of the electorate”.
The US Supreme Court is due to make a ruling on the legality of Trump’s imposition of tariffs. These conservative-majority judges have a decidedly mixed record so far in checking this administration’s executive overreach. But even if they do “attempt to curb Trump’s power”, it seems likely he’ll swerve the move. US trade negotiator Jamieson Greer has already said the administration will simply replace tariffs with other levies.
That leaves those in the president’s inner circle. Many had hoped that Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser Jared Kushner and Secretary of State Marco Rubio might be moderating forces in the White House. But there’s no evidence of that so far. Cue then the president’s trusted chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Some see the 68-year-old moderate Republican as “the only person capable of tethering Trump to reality”, said Alex Hannaford in The Independent. But “to others, she is the master enabler, standing by in the shadows as the norms of the presidency are dismantled one hand gesture at a time”.
What next?
Trump is making a “special address” to the World Economic Forum in Davos this afternoon, followed by a summit with CEOs and an interview with CNBC.
Last night he said that “things are going to work out pretty well, actually” but refused to say how far he is willing to go to seize Greenland. With Nato and transatlantic relations already “at a new nadir,” said Politico’s Sam Blewett and Bethany Dawson, “the question now is whether Trump kisses and makes up, or pours on more fuel”.
