Trump backs off Greenland threats, declares ‘deal’

What happened

President Donald Trump on Wednesday delivered a long, winding speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he repeatedly criticized several heads of state in the audience and reiterated his demand that Denmark hand over its self-ruling territory Greenland. But by the end of the day, Trump announced that he and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had “formed the framework for a future deal with respect to Greenland,” and he dropped his threatened tariffs on European allies who opposed his effort to seize the large Arctic island.

Who said what

Trump’s “about-face followed days of back-channel conversations” with advisers and European leaders, The Wall Street Journal said. For the leaders in Davos, only “four words” in Trump’s “otherwise fiery” speech really mattered, CNN said: “I won’t use force.” Trump’s “retreat” on seizing Greenland was the “latest head-spinning twist” in this saga, The Washington Post said, but he “offered few details” on his deal framework.

One possible off-ramp, suggested by Rutte at NATO meetings, involved giving the U.S. “some sovereignty over small pockets of Greenland for military bases,” The New York Times said. One official “compared the concept to the United Kingdom’s bases in Cyprus, which are regarded as British territory.”

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Trump’s “backpedaling” on tariffs and forcibly taking Greenland was a relief to the Europeans, Politico said. But his “continued heckling of allies as ‘ungrateful’ for not simply giving the U.S. ‘ownership and title’ of what he said was just ‘a piece of ice’ did little to reverse” the “deepening sentiment among NATO leaders and other longtime allies” that the U.S. can no longer be considered a “reliable ally.”

What next?

Yesterday “encapsulated” Trump’s “second-term approach to global power and policymaking,” the Times said: “alternating between coercing and humiliating once-close allies in the pursuit of a goal that he appears to see as a critical piece of his legacy.” European officials said Trump’s “sudden shift in tone doesn’t resolve the dispute but helps defuse an open rift between allies as they work to sort out their differences in private,” Reuters said.