Trump trip to Europe deepens transatlantic discord

(CN) — In the end, both sides of the Atlantic claimed victory following U.S. President Donald Trump’s disruptive trip to Europe that saw him insult, offend and belittle NATO allies as he dominated the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

By Friday, Trump was back in Washington touting a purported “framework of a deal” that reportedly involves the United States seizing bits of Greenland for military bases while European leaders patted themselves on the back for standing up to Trump and forcing him into a U-turn on his threats of new tariffs and taking Greenland by force.

Still, Trump’s disorienting trip left more questions than answers as it sent shockwaves through Greenland and Denmark, the NATO alliance, financial markets and European capitals.

One thing is clear: Trump’s trip left the transatlantic relationship even more damaged.

“This has not created but accentuated the breakdown of trust between European and American policy actors,” said Alexander Clarkson, a political scientist at King’s College London, speaking by telephone.

He said European leaders are now clear-eyed about how their relationship with the U.S. has fundamentally changed and how they cannot rely on America as a stable military and economic ally.

“Europeans realize, to their shock, this isn’t a temporary blip, this is a long-term problem,” he said.

For Manlio Graziano, a Paris-based political scientist, Trump’s disruptive appearance at Davos was part of what he sees as a larger U.S. strategy to sow discord around the world, even among its allies in Asia and Europe.

The purpose behind this stratagem, he said, is to shore up America’s shrinking global dominance. Conflict pushes countries to build up their militaries and that in turn revives old animosities, leading to even more tension, Graziano said.

“There is in reality a strategy,” Graziano said, speaking by telephone. He runs the Nicholas Spykman International Center for Geopolitical Analysis.

He said the strategy may envision creating a new “international balance of power” where the U.S. turns countries against each other and “continues on with its life with ease.”

But he said such a strategy would be doomed to fail for many reasons, chief among them an irreversible decline in U.S. economic dominance and its domestic problems.

He said the lowkey response by European leaders to the Jan. 3 capture of Nicolás Maduro, the former president of Venezuela, persuaded American leaders they could foment a new round of discord inside Europe by making claims over Greenland.

“The more the Americans push, the more Europeans become divided among themselves,” he said. “Europeans have never been united; they’ve only pretended to be united as long as they were under Washington’s protection.”

With its move on Greenland, he said Washington showed it can wreak panic and division in Europe. He said Europe would face a tougher test in the event Trump opts to abandon the defense of Ukraine and side with Russia.

“They have a lot of weapons at their disposal to create total chaos,” Graziano said. He cited the Trump administration’s backing of far-right nationalist populist parties as a method to stir up trouble in Europe.

He said Trump’s climbdown on Greenland appeared more a reaction to a sharp fall on stock markets this week than pressure from European leaders.

“That was the decisive reason for Trump’s reversal,” he said.

Trump arrived in Davos on Wednesday and delivered one of his trademark scathing speeches where he questioned whether NATO allies would come to America’s aid if it was attacked and disparaged non-American troops by claiming they “stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines” while fighting in Afghanistan against the Taliban.

By Friday, growing outrage in Britain, which suffered 457 troop losses in Afghanistan, compelled British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to hit back.

In televised remarks, Starmer, who’s consistently sought to stay on Trump’s good side, called the U.S. president’s remarks “insulting and frankly appalling.”

Mostly, European leaders let out a sigh of relief this week and suggested the big issue — Trump’s desire to seize all of Greenland — could be laid to rest.

News outlets, citing anonymous officials, reported that a proposed deal announced late Wednesday in Davos by Trump and NATO chief Mark Rutte involved ceding bits of territory to the U.S. where it could build permanent military bases.

But the details remained undisclosed and extremely murky with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen insisting her country’s sovereignty would not be compromised.

Still, many political analysts foresee Denmark may be forced to give up territory to the U.S. to end the standoff and save the NATO alliance.

“The Europeans will basically say, ‘Yeah, stick a flag up on your base and declare it your soil,’ and then we’ll surround you with our troops,” Clarkson said.

“I think that’s the most this is in the end. That means 99.9% of the rest of Greenland remains European.”

Before making his trip to Europe, Trump threatened to seize Greenland by force if necessary, causing outrage among European leaders who responded by sending troops to Greenland.

Denmark and its European allies say they will station thousands of soldiers in Greenland both to deter the U.S. but also to appease Trump, who has argued that Greenland needs to come under U.S. control for security reasons because the Arctic region needs better protection from Russia and China.

On Friday, Frederiksen traveled to Nuuk, the capital of the semiautonomous Danish territory of Greenland, to talk with its Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.

In comments to reporters, she declined to offer insights into the purported U.S.-NATO deal, but said “we have a path” to enter into discussions with the U.S.

Simply by opening talks with Denmark over military bases and rare-earth mining in Greenland, Trump could have achieved his aims without causing so much strife and damage to the transatlantic partnership.

“None of this was necessary to get this outcome,” Clarkson said.

He said this week’s events may wind up being seen as highly significant.

“Pessimistically, [it was] the beginning of the end,” he said. “If I was an optimist, I’d call it constructive chaos: Constructive in that it’s a shock, but maybe it will force people to reassess.”

Europeans, he said, must “move faster to become more self-reliant because we can’t trust the United States.”

“That doesn’t mean that the alliance is broken forever,” he added. Obviously, a new administration in the White House, such as one led by Democrats, might seek to revive the partnership, he said.

“The alliance might survive,” he said. “That’s probably a good thing. But it would be a different kind of alliance.”

But, he added, it “will die if it keeps going like this.”

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

Follow @cainburdeau