Trump’s Greenland reversal highlights limits, costs of unpredictable power

President Donald Trump’s abrupt retreat from his demand that the United States obtain ownership of Greenland has offered a rare glimpse of the guardrails still capable of constraining his most extreme foreign-policy impulses. After threatening punishing tariffs and even military force, Trump reversed course under a convergence of pressures that exposed both the limits of his leverage and the fragility of trust in US leadership.

Those pressures were multifaceted, The Washington Post outlines: a unified front of opposition from America’s transatlantic allies, negative signals from financial markets wary of a tariff war, and a noticeable lack of enthusiasm from typically compliant Republicans in Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) sought to downplay the episode, framing the president’s talk of military action as a negotiating tactic meant to spotlight Greenland’s strategic importance.

The turning point came just hours after Trump delivered a blistering hour-long speech on January 21 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he reiterated his ambition to “get Greenland, including right, title and ownership.” Following a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump announced what he described as a “framework of a future deal.”

That framework, however, stops well short of US possession of Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark. Nor is it evident that the United States will gain anything not already accessible — or nearly so — through the renegotiation of longstanding agreements dating back decades.

While the immediate crisis has eased, the longer-term damage may be more consequential. As Trump escalated his rhetoric, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a stark warning in Davos. 

“We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition," he said. "It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”

Carney cautioned against accommodation, concluding: “Well, it won’t.”

Though Trump was not named, the target was unmistakable. Carney’s remarks signaled a shift away from the strategy many NATO allies have employed during the first year of Trump’s second term — managing him through flattery and symbolic concessions. Rutte’s much-noted reference to Trump as “daddy,” whether ironic or not, was emblematic of that approach.

Yet European leaders have found that Trump remains, as ever, “predictably unpredictable.” His reversals have made it difficult to secure firm commitments, particularly regarding US support for Ukraine against Russia and President Vladimir Putin’s territorial ambitions.

Some analysts argue that a silver lining is Europe’s accelerated move toward greater self-reliance in defence, a long-standing Trump objective.

“For 80 years, it has been the United States directing traffic in Europe. We call the shots,” said Max Bergmann of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That era, he suggested, is ending.

The lingering question for Washington, Bergmann added, is stark: “How do you revive American leadership and trust after this?”

By Sabina Mammadli