As the world finally punches back, was this the week Donald Trump went too far? | Jonathan Freedland
TThe temptation is strong to hope that the storm has passed. It seems as if a week that began with an American threat to seize a European territory, whether by force or extortion, ended with the promise of a negotiation and therefore a return to normal. But this is a dangerous illusion. There can be no return to normal. The world we thought we knew is gone. The only question now is what comes next – a question that concerns us all, that is fraught with danger and that, perhaps unexpectedly, also carries a whisper of hope.
Let us forget that Donald Trump finally renounced his threats to conquer Greenland, holstering the economic gun that he had put to the heads of all the countries that stood in his way, including the United Kingdom. His making this threat confirmed what should have been obvious since his return to power a year ago: that, under his leadership, the United States has become an unreliable ally, if not a real enemy, of its former friends.
All of this was expressed in a manner that was both rude and insulting. In the second category comes his latest remark that NATO allies were “a little behind the front line” in Afghanistan, a vile affront to the families of the 457 British servicemen and their comrades across the alliance who gave their lives in that conflict.
In the first category, there was the unveiling of his latest adventure: after telling the Norwegian Prime Minister, whom he falsely accused of having refused him the Nobel medal, that he was starting to miss peace, he came to Davos to launch his “peace council”. Trump is the only book you can judge by its cover, and the new body’s logo says it all: as one witty noted, it was essentially the insignia of the UN “except dipped in gold and edited so that the world only included America.”
That sums it up: the “peace council” is an attempt to supplant and monetize the post-1945 international architecture, replacing the UN with a Mar-a-Lago-style membership club where a permanent seat costs $1 billion and decision-making power is in the hands of Trump himself, even after his presidential term expires. The fact that Vladimir Putin was invited and Mark Carney was excluded tells you everything you need to know.
For a time, America’s allies took solace in the belief that Trump was an aberration who would one day disappear, allowing the old ways to resume. This illusion has also been shattered. While Trump still seemed determined to follow through on his threats against Greenland, there was no sign of anyone or anything in the United States that could stop him. Over the past 12 months, Trump has demonstrated that formal constraints intended to control the American president are easily swept aside. And if it can happen once, it can happen again. This means that Trump is not alone in being an unreliable ally. Unfortunately, it is the United States itself.
There are immediate lessons to be learned from all of this. The first is that Trump continues until he meets resistance. His former adviser Steve Bannon told the Atlantic this week that the Trump team’s strategy across the board is “maximalist,” going as far as possible until someone stops them. Trump’s actions in Greenland have caused plummeting stock markets and domestic disapproval — 86 percent of Americans oppose an armed conquest of the island — but they have also brought a united front and serious economic counterthreats from Europe. The Europeans stood up and Trump backed down.
This provides a more enduring and essential lesson for America’s long-time friends. They cannot be in a position of dependence on the United States – whether economic or military – to the point of having to give in to their demands. For explaining this simple point, Carney was rewarded with a standing ovation at Davos after a speech that may become the defining text of the period. “The old order will not return,” declared the Canadian Prime Minister. “We must not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”
What Carney called for, and what the moment demands, is a new arrangement, a new formation. The “middle powers,” the nations of the democratic West outside the United States, must not passively accept that the old world of “institutions and rules” has been replaced by a new world of “strongmen and deals,” as the former head of MI6 puts it. Instead of competing with each other to become the most accommodating American hegemon, pandering to the emperor in the Oval Office in hopes of escaping his wrath, they can, Carney says, “come together to create a third way.”
What would that look like? The obvious shape is a new constellation consisting of the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada, both a powerful economic bloc and a muscular security alliance. Ultimately, this would aim to provide a positive answer to the question that has arisen particularly last year: could Europe defend Ukraine, and itself, without the United States? Right now, the cold, hard answer to that question is no. Volodymyr Zelensky was not wrong to say that today’s Europe “remains a magnificent but fragmented kaleidoscope of small and medium powers”, a Europe that “seems lost, trying to convince the American president to change”. [when] he will not change.”
The goal is therefore nothing less than a new alliance of Western democracies no longer dependent on the United States for their own defense. This cannot happen overnight; it could take a decade or more to achieve this. But, as former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told me this week, it would be “a major dereliction of duty if we don’t do the work now” to achieve that goal.
Because it will take time, this means there cannot be a sudden break with the United States. As long as allies remain dependent on American protection, figures like Keir Starmer will have to keep smiling while shaking Trump’s hand. The NATO vehicle will have to stay on the road, even if its most powerful member continues to slash tires. But in the meantime, a newly conceived group, perhaps presented innocuously as simply a “European arm of NATO,” will consolidate and gain strength.
The unavoidable key to this plan lies in a considerable increase in defense spending. This will transform the politics of all countries that have enjoyed the peace dividend since the end of the Cold War, a dividend that has allowed them to spend less on weapons and more on schools and hospitals. And it will reshape the decades-old debate over Britain’s relationship with Europe. Both sides will surely need to act, as Britain abandons its Brexit illusions and the EU grants Britain something closer to frictionless trade in return for the serious contribution the UK will make to Europe’s defence.
There are opportunities here, including for Starmer. He can present manifesto-contrary tax increases as a matter of national security. It can similarly present closer ties with Europe. He may leave Nigel Farage marooned on the wrong side of public opinion, a fanboy of the man who insulted Britain’s war dead. Starmer can present the Reform Party as the party in Trump’s thrall, and his opponents as the true defenders of Britain’s sovereignty and independence.
The world we knew is dying, killed by the future Emperor of the Potomac. But something else became visible this week: a new world waiting to be born.
