This is an adapted excerpt from the Jan. 21 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
Donald Trump loves nothing more than to start a crisis that he can then claim credit for solving. It is his go-to power move. On Wednesday, we got the latest example of this on the world stage.
Trump spoke to fellow global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, ranting about how much he wanted to own Greenland, insulting all the European countries that have objected, generally embarrassing himself — and all of us — on the world stage once again.
It does not sound like Trump is getting Greenland. He is getting talks about Arctic security, and in return he is not waging a trade war on Europe — this time.
For months, he has basically been threatening to take Greenland by force, the way that Adolf Hitler rolled into Czechoslovakia and Vladimir Putin rolled into Ukraine.
It has brought the NATO alliance to the brink. It has spooked stock markets. It has even led Canada, one of America’s closest allies, to formulate military plans for dealing with a U.S. invasion.
Having stared the united European opposition in the face, having seen the S&P stock index lose all its gains on the year in one day, and having seen poll numbers showing that 86% of Americans do not want to go to war over Greenland, Trump started a walk-back that ended in a total retreat.
It started with one line in his speech that seemed unlike all the others. “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be, frankly, unstoppable,” he said. “But I don’t want to do that.”
“That’s probably the biggest statement I made, because people thought I would use force,” Trump continued. “I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
It was a sentiment belied by everything else he said in his speech, and almost everything else his administration has said about Greenland in recent weeks.
On Monday, the Defense Department was posting artificial intelligence photos of American soldiers and bombers invading a snowy, mountainous land.
On Tuesday, when a reporter asked what lengths he would go to acquire Greenland, Trump said: “You’ll find out.”
Then, shortly after that speech, the president took to social media to announce that he was in full retreat. “Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region,” Trump wrote.
“Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st,” the post stated. “Additional discussions are being held concerning The Golden Dome as it pertains to Greenland. Further information will be made available as discussions progress.”
What does that mean? I don’t know. And honestly, it is not clear Trump does, either. He later told CNBC the administration had “a concept of a deal.”
It does not sound like Trump is getting Greenland. He is getting talks about Arctic security, and in return he is not waging a trade war on Europe — this time.
After Trump’s news, markets rallied and people breathed a sigh of relief.
But that is not how the day started. Trump did himself no favors earlier Wednesday, when he gave an hourlong rant blasting NATO while repeatedly confusing Greenland with Iceland.
When a reporter noted that Trump misspoke, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded on social media that the president’s “written remarks referred to Greenland as a ‘piece of ice’ because that’s what it is.” Leavitt included a shot of an iceberg that she apparently found when googling “Greenland.”
That was the culmination of an embarrassing week for the U.S. in Davos. According to reports, on Tuesday night, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was heckled at a World Economic Forum dinner. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde reportedly walked out during his speech, and the dinner was called off before dessert.
In response, the Commerce Department told reporters, “Only one person booed, and it was Al Gore.”
On Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a stirring speech in Davos about the “middle powers” of the world moving on from U.S. leadership, announcing that the rules-based order is basically dead.
In recent days, multiple European Union nations have moved troops to Greenland, making it clear to Trump that an attack on the island would be an attack on all of Europe.
Just before Trump’s speech, European lawmakers agreed to indefinitely freeze the trade agreement that Trump had struck with them last summer.
In other words, Europe called Trump’s bluff. He was isolated and humiliated. He backed down from “only America can protect Greenland” to “let’s have talks on Greenland.” But we have been here before. This is a pattern. We saw it last year when Trump announced his arbitrary tariffs on the entire world, his so-called Liberation Day. Markets tanked, people panicked, and Trump met resistance, both abroad and at home. So he kept delaying the date when the tariffs would kick in, and he started lowering his arbitrary tax rates on individual countries. Trump’s tendency to back down under pressure even earned him the nickname “TACO,” as in “Trump always chickens out.” What we know from experience is that Trump will push as far and as hard as he can until he meets resistance. To be clear, that is a toxic, dangerous cycle. Yes, the president backed off his worst tariff threat, but not before doing huge damage to international alliances, driving up inflation and squeezing American consumers and small businesses. Backing off from the worst-case scenario is hardly comforting. The fundamental lesson here is that the crisis isn’t over until Trump’s regime is no longer in power. Now we find ourselves in the same situation. Yes, we are not going to have a war of conquest in Greenland, in which American service members are shooting and killing Danes, so that we can steal a piece of land that is not ours. But this whole dumb affair has fundamentally altered — some would say destroyed — the American-led, rules-based global order that has held since World War II. The fundamental lesson here is that the crisis isn’t over until Trump’s regime is no longer in power. He will keep pushing every day for whatever he can get away with until he is really opposed, which means you have to have unified resistance on the other side. It appears global leaders now understand, in a similar way that it took a while for American institutions to grasp, that you cannot just price in that Trump will back down on his own, because sometimes he does go all the way. Like after he lost the 2020 election and called it rigged. Many people who should have known better said, “What’s the harm in humoring him?” The harm was that he tried to violently overthrow the government of the United States. He tried to do that because his self-serving lies didn’t meet enough resistance. The lesson here is that if Trump thinks he can get away with it, he will do it. So when he is at his most reckless, the only check on his power, at home and abroad, is total, eternal vigilance. Allison Detzel contributed.
Chris Hayes hosts “All In with Chris Hayes” at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday through Friday on MS NOW. He is the editor-at-large at The Nation. A former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Hayes was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource” (Penguin Press). Recommended
