Legend has it that Henry Kissinger, then national security adviser to Richard Nixon, once said: “To speak to Europe, what number should I call? » It does not matter that the American diplomat has, several times during his career, denied having ever uttered such a sentence. This quote perfectly sums up, fifty years after this apocryphal find – which we in fact owe to an Irish minister – the image that Donald Trump is made of the European Union. A rickety Spanish inn, without economic growth, without military capacity, a fragile Tower of Babel, incapable of expressing a clear thought, so weak that it only takes a flick of the chin, from the Oval Office, to make it wobble.
No, Trump, in Davos, “holy of holies” of globalism, in this snowy and chic Mecca of multilateralism, undoubtedly did not obtain what it wanted: total sovereignty over Greenland. Yes, he backed down on customs duties – once again. And ? No matter: in Davos, America took on Europe.
The threat and its effects
At the World Economic Forum, Trump was looking for something other than European membership. As for his affection, it mattered even less to him. He came to concretely verify a hypothesis: the European Union remains incapable of transforming moral indignation into a balance of power. Concerning Greenland, the former New York real estate developer backed down on form – no use of force, no military ultimatum – but he retained the essentials: the initiative and the capacity to confront Europeans with their fractures.
“All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland. » In the room, everyone understood that Trump was not only talking about an Arctic island under Danish sovereignty but about a principle: that of a world where American interests must be protected even if it means upsetting allies incapable of responding with one voice. The reduction in customs duties, announced a few hours later, did not reverse this impression. Trump found, with NATO, “the framework of a future agreement” and suspended, on this basis, the planned surcharges. Here again, the threat existed and produced its effects.
Because Europe, facing Greenland, has remained true to itself. Unanimous in concern and divided in their responses. The Italy of Giorgia Meloni, close to Trump, refused any idea of Italian military projection on this Danish territory. Not one Italian soldier was deployed to Greenland when Paris sent around fifteen. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán hardly concealed his goodwill towards the American arguments, recalling that “Arctic security first concerns the United States”.
Warsaw found itself in a more uncomfortable position. Fiercely Atlanticist – it is, by far, the country in Europe where Trump is the most popular – Poland, which carries in its flesh the memory of its Russian and German annexations, lives a delicate cohabitation. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that “Large countries must not assume the right to take control of smaller states”while conservative President Karol Nawrocki, also present in Davos, called “European countries to avoid gestures of resentment against the United States in this crisis”.
In this standoff, Emmanuel Macron lost most of his credit with Trump. The latter now openly displays his skepticism. He considers his French counterpart as a politician at the end of his career, stuck in the absence of a parliamentary majority. Those around him know that his government is at the mercy of censorship at any time. In Washington, this French fragility is seen as a serious handicap in the overhaul of global strategic balances.
Talking about a victory for Europe after its decline is misleading
In Trump’s eyes, the French head of state embodies a refined and talkative Europe, but largely outdated in the face of current rivalries, in particular with China. Friendly with his aviator glasses, willingly talkative, but incapable of imposing a lasting line. This persistent impression of cacophony, sometimes even within governments, serves the republican.
It is precisely this Europe that the American president reveals and showcases. The method is nothing new. What Kissinger, even in the legend, knew he could not achieve, Trump cannot achieve either. He speaks in Rome, in Budapest, in Warsaw, in Berlin, bypassing the very idea of European sovereignty.
A year earlier, in Munich, its vice-president J. D. Vance had already set the terms of the debate during the Security Conference. “The threat that worries me most for Europe is neither Russia nor China, but the internal threat”he said, astonishing the audience.
Since then, Vance has refined the reasoning. In an interview given Friday to Newsmax, an American channel with strong right-wing roots, he rejects any accusation of hostility towards the Old Continent. The misunderstanding, he insists, would be total: Washington would not have “a problem with Europe”. Quite the contrary. American demands on borders, growth or NATO are, according to him, an almost emotional attachment. “We love Europe”he insists, evoking a “European civilization” which should be protected and an Atlantic alliance which only makes sense if the Europeans are capable of ensuring their own defense.
If the United States is so urgent, explains the vice-president, it is precisely because European leaders refuse to do what Washington considers elementary: control their borders, assume economic power and think about their security without systematically depending on America. “We love Europe so much that we demand that it do what its own leadership refuses to do”he says, calling on the continent to “be smarter”.
Denmark continues to be responsible for financing the territory alone, i.e. 600 million dollars annually.
The 2026 Davos summit is part of this continuity. The Trump administration was aware of the diplomatic or military constraints of its Arctic ambitions. Talking about a European victory after its decline is misleading. Disunited, Europe has chosen the line of least resistance rather than imposing its will. No, at Davos, America did not get Greenland. But Washington succeeded in its coup. For one day, Trump snatched away what most leaders fail to obtain after years of negotiations.
Denmark continues to be responsible for financing the territory alone, i.e. 600 million dollars annually, almost half of the Greenlandic public budget. Meanwhile, the United States is offering itself a strategic avenue: unhindered military deployments, full access to the Arctic space, control over the exploitation of mining resources by its multinationals. Beijing and Moscow find themselves closing the doors to a territory at the heart of the new global balance of power. And America is doing better: the public demonstration that, faced with an American president ready to exploit every disagreement, Europe remains an accumulation of national interests, and not a strategic actor. Fifty years after the formula attributed to Kissinger, the question remains. On this ground, it is Trump who unfolds his act.
