European governments and their diplomats here in Washington are as relieved as they are exasperated by this extraordinary Greenland show and latest act which played out in the Swiss Alps over the past 24 hours.
There is no “framework of a deal”. Not yet.
Donald Trump may claim there is, but that’s only because he needed a way to back down from his threats when he realised that he wasn’t going to be able to own Greenland.
Trump’s climbdown as it happened
“Is this just Trump’s off ramp? No actual framework of a deal yet?” I asked one diplomat at the heart of it all.
The response: “Exactly.”
Through the “Trump whisperer”, NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, the Danish and Greenlander positions have essentially been reiterated to the American president.
During a face-to-face meeting in Davos, pre-existing commitments in the 1951 US-Denmark treaty were reemphasised and European nations re-committed to increase their own defence of Greenland.
When they did precisely this last week, by literally sending senior military officials to Greenland, Trump interpreted it as a provocation against him and issued the tariff threat.
“I’m so bored of this now…” one European ambassador told me over the weekend, such is the level of weariness over the American president’s antics.
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This crisis is far from over for NATO
A trio of U-turns
The day in Davos was dizzying even by Trump’s standards.
He first U-turned on the implicit threat of military action, then he U-turned on the tariff threat, and then he U-turned on the insistence that he take sovereignty of Greenland. All in the space of a day.
The penny had dropped in his head, it seems. His realised his Greenland ownership plans were more than just unpopular at home (among his own side too). They were seen as self-defeating, undeliverable and frankly mad.
He arrived in Davos to a wave of opposition. For once, Europe was united and firm. It can be incredibly effective when it’s both of those things together.
Of course, Team Trump will spin this as another blinding example of the president’s “art of the deal” playing out; like they achieved something.
But be in no doubt, that’s nonsense. It’s half show, half ineptitude, which is deeply damaging to the trans-Atlantic partnership. America under Trump is less reliable by the day. And the damage is lasting.
Where are we now – and what next?
On Greenland, we are now back at the position we were in last week when the Danish and Greenland foreign ministers met Trump’s team. They agreed then to form a “working group” to seek a middle ground which addressed Trump’s security concerns while not handing over Greenland’s sovereignty.
All that Trump really did today was to agree with the American participants in that working group.
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So where next? Both sides will look for a middle ground that doesn’t hand over Greenland to America. There is plenty of space for ideas and creative thinking – there always was if only the American president was willing to listen.
It’s likely that the middle ground will involve some sort of arrangement similar to the UK military bases in Cyprus. New US military bases would be established in uninhabited parts of Greenland on a lease or sale deal. They would become American territory, but sovereignty of Greenland would remain unchanged.
