President Donald Trump gives. And he takes away.
Offended by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s increasingly assertive posture toward the U.S., Trump revoked an invitation to join his Board of Peace. Many Western allies are suspicious of the organization, which is chaired by Trump and was initially formed to focus on maintaining the ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas but has grown into something skeptics fear could rival the United Nations.
Appearing at the World Economic Forum, Trump spoke of imposing tariffs on Switzerland — which he ultimately lowered — because the country’s leader “rubbed me the wrong way” during a phone call. Before shelving sweeping tariffs on multiple European countries, Trump pressed Denmark to “say yes” to the U.S. push to control Greenland “and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember,” he said, imperiling the NATO alliance.
Over his decades in public life, Trump has never been one for niceties. But even by his standards, the tumult of the past week stood out because it crystallized his determination to erase the rules-based order that has governed U.S. foreign policy — and by extension most of the Western world — since World War II.
The president and his supporters have dismissed that approach as inefficient, overly focused on compromise and unresponsive to the needs of people contending with rapid economic change. But in its place, Trump is advancing a system that is poorly understood and could prove far less stable, driven by the whims of a single, often mercurial, leader who regularly demonstrates that personal flattery or animus can shape his decisions.
Returning to the U.S. from Davos, home to the World Economic Forum, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said the phrase she heard “over and over” was that “we are entering this new world order” as she described a sense of confusion among allies.
“It may be you just had a bad telephone call with the president and now you’re going to have tariffs directed at you,” she told reporters. “This lack of stability and reliability, I think, is causing what were traditionally reliable trade partners to be saying to other countries, ‘Hey, maybe you and I should talk because I’m not sure about what’s going on with the United States.’”
The Trump-centric approach to governing
The Trump-centric approach to governing is hardly surprising for someone who accepted his first Republican presidential nomination in 2016 by declaring that “I alone can fix” the nation’s problems. As he settles into his second term with a far more confident demeanor than his first, he has delighted supporters with his to-the-victor -goes-the-spoils style.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, recently told the Atlantic that Trump is pursuing a “maximalist strategy” and that he must keep going “until you meet resistance.”
“And we haven’t met any resistance,” Bannon said.
That’s certainly true in Washington, where the Republican-controlled Congress has done little to check Trump’s impulses. But leaders of other countries, who have spent much of Trump’s administration trying to find ways to work with him, are increasingly vocal.
Carney is quickly emerging as a leader of a movement for countries to find ways to link up and counter the U.S. Speaking in Davos ahead of Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.”
“In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: to compete with each other for favor or to combine to create a third path with impact,” he continued. “We should not allow the rise of hard powers to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together.”
Trump did not take kindly to those remarks, responding with threats in Davos before yanking the Board of Peace invitation.
“Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump said. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
Some leaders are pushing back
Carney, however, was unbowed, speaking of Canada as “an example to a world at sea” as he crafted a potential template for other world leaders navigating a new era.
“We can show that another way is possible, that the arc of history isn’t destined to be warped toward authoritarianism and exclusion,” he said in a speech before a cabinet retreat in Quebec City.
In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer blasted Trump on Friday for “insulting and frankly appalling” comments in which he expressed doubt that NATO would support the U.S. if requested. The president seemingly ignored that the only time Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty, which requires all member countries to help another member under threat, was invoked was after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.
Referring to non-US troops, Trump told Fox Business Network, “You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
Starmer, noting the 457 British personnel who died and those with life-long injuries, said he will “never forget their courage, their bravery and the sacrifice they made for their country.” Denmark, which Trump has belittled as “ungrateful” for U.S. protection during World War II, had the highest per capita death toll among coalition forces in Afghanistan.
His tactics have raised fears that Trump is imposing long-term damage on the U.S. standing in the world and encouraging countries to rethink their alliances and deepen their ties with China. Carney already traveled there earlier this month to meet with President Xi Jinping.
“China’s leadership watched an American president fight with allies, insult world leaders, and engage in bizarre antics, and thought to themselves — this is nothing but good for us,” Jake Sullivan, former President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said in an email.
The administration is showing no sign of backing down. In a social media post referring to Canada’s ties with Beijing, Trump said China “will eat them up.” And the Pentagon released a defense strategy late Friday telling allies to handle their own security.
Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, was in Davos and participated in a bipartisan delegation to Denmark with Murkowski that was intended to show unity amid Trump’s bid for Greenland. Recalling his conversations with other leaders, he told reporters on Friday that Trump has shown he only backs down when countries like China “showed toughness and a resiliency.”
“Those who were accommodating and who negotiated in good faith, like the EU, which did not impose retaliatory tariffs, seemed to have not won any of his respect,” Coons said. “They can reach their own conclusions, but it would seem to me that trying to find a way to accommodate him when the foundation of his demands about Greenland is unhinged … seem to me to suggest a course of action.”
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Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, Rob Gillies in Toronto and Pan Pylas in London contributed to this report.
