The lesson for Europe from Trump’s climbdown? When we stop genuflecting and hit back, he ‘tacos’ | Nathalie Tocci
DThe fall of Donald Trump, after days of escalation during which he refused to rule out a military attack aimed at annexing Greenland, was spectacular. In his Davos speech, Trump reiterated his desire to own Greenland, saying you can’t defend what you don’t own, then announcing he would not conquer the Arctic island by force. Hours later, he claimed that he had reached an unspecified agreement on Greenland and would therefore refrain from imposing additional tariffs on European countries that had the audacity to participate in a joint military exercise in Greenland at the invitation of Denmark.
We do not know the details of the framework agreement concluded between Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, nor whether it has any weight, given the US president’s fickleness. But it seems that the agreement, while open to discussing Arctic security, mineral rights and perhaps even the sovereignty of US bases, it preserves the sovereignty of Greenland within the Kingdom of Denmark. In short, this is a remarkable turnaround.
There are several possible explanations for this reversal. Republican and American public discomfort with the prospect of attacking a NATO ally, turmoil in global markets and Rutte’s sycophancy are all possibilities. Domestic pressures in the United States may have played a role, but they were not yet strong enough to fully explain this sudden turnaround.
Rutte’s servility is certainly appreciated by Trump, but it probably hasn’t deterred him from his ambition to make his mark as the first president to expand U.S. territory since the late 1950s. The decline in markets offers a more plausible explanation. This is not the first time: Trump’s abrupt retreat on trade after his grandiose “Liberation Day” last spring coincided with a free fall in the market and China’s refusal to back down, ready to retaliate tit for tat in the trade war.
Yet the markets don’t care whether Greenland belongs to Denmark or the United States, nor do they lose sleep over violations of international law. When Trump attacked Venezuela without even seeking a UN Security Council resolution, the market response was muted. Nor were markets shaken when, soon after, the United States threatened a new war with Iran.
This time, markets reacted negatively, as they did in the spring of 2025, as Europe signaled that this would not be a breeze again.
Everyone knows that Europe does not hold the same cards as China in its relations with the United States, and that the United States can harm Europe more than the other way around. But Europe has some leverage. Even the mention of its use, thus opening the prospect of a trade war, sent shivers through the markets, pushing Trump to back down.
The lesson for Europeans is clear. For a year, they tried to appease, seduce and appease Trump. They gave him gold-framed birth certificates, broke protocol to send royal invitations, played golf with him and sent him sycophantic text messages. They accepted a terrible trade deal and agreed to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP, knowing that many countries would never reach that goal. They did this to buy time, hoping to get Trump to side with them on Ukraine and remain committed to European security.
But Trump humiliated the Ukrainians and mocked the Europeans, stubbornly refusing to exert any pressure on Vladimir Putin. Yes, the United States still sells weapons to Europeans, who then ship them to Ukraine. More recently, it opened the door to granting security guarantees to kyiv in a post-war scenario. But U.S. military support for Ukraine has declined and any security guarantees are hypothetical, given that a ceasefire is not in sight.
Besides, what is the value of a deal signed with Trump if he can tear it up at any time, as he has already demonstrated with trade? Europeans have tacitly tolerated Trump’s illegal war on Iran and have been ambiguous about his equally illegal attack on Venezuela. In return, they received the threat of annexation of Greenland. The US president could not have been more blunt in Davos when he said that no one defends what is not theirs. If anyone still had any doubt about his commitment to NATO, Article 5 on collective defense has been thrown out the window.
The European Year of Genuflection was a spectacular failure. But something is changing. The Europeans held on against Greenland. European leaders, individually and collectively, spoke out in solidarity with Denmark and in support of its sovereignty. A group of European countries have sent troops to Greenland for a joint military exercise. Most EU countries, with the exception of Hungary and Bulgaria, have shunned Trump’s “peace council.”
The European Parliament suspended ratification of the EU-US trade deal on tariffs, and European institutions began debating possible retaliatory measures if the US continued economic coercion. These include anti-customs measures worth just under €100 billion and the use of the EU’s most powerful trade weapon, the Anti-Coercion Instrument, to limit access to the European single market or impose other measures aimed at restricting the ability of US companies to invest in Europe.
All this remains hypothetical, given the American withdrawal. We cannot know for sure whether the EU will have the stamina to go through with it if US economic coercion actually escalates. And it is very likely that if the EU responded, it would do so gradually, seeking consensus and always offering a way out. In other words, the EU would continue to act in a typically European way.
But the lesson Europeans should learn from this latest episode of the Trump show is that the toughness they have shown temporarily works much better than the subordination they have attempted over the past year. The temperature has dropped, so the risk is that European leaders will return to their comfort zone of cowardice and inaction. But the calm won’t last long, and when the next transatlantic crisis erupts, they should remember that Trump, like any strongman, understands strength and only strength.
