Those of a religious bent might accuse stereotypical “Davos Man”—immense fortune, private jet, outrageous hypocrisy, spine-tingling pomposity—of the sin of pride. In which case President Trump’s speech Wednesday to the World Economic Forum at Davos felt like a form of divine retribution.
It was a wild day, with Mr. Trump berating Europe even as he said he won’t invade Greenland after all. America’s allies (and their many friends in the U.S. Congress) have been reeling since Mr. Trump on Saturday threatened to impose tariffs on a handful of countries if they obstruct his effort to buy the arctic island from Denmark.
What a difference a market rout on Tuesday makes. U.S. stock indexes soared Wednesday on word that he won’t invade. And they climbed again when several hours later Mr. Trump announced he won’t impose the tariffs after he had reached a “framework of a future deal” on Greenland with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Details to come.
Yet how embarrassing for Europe in particular. Mr. Trump pointed out that Denmark and other European allies would struggle to defend Greenland from the U.S. or anyone else. “It’s the United States alone that can protect this giant mass of land, this giant piece of ice, develop it and improve it,” he said. Which is true.
This followed a long riff about Europe’s many economic dysfunctions, especially on energy policy. He referred to the European Union’s flagship Green New Deal climate policies as the “green new scam,” chastised Britain for failing to tap more North Sea oil, and mocked the “catastrophic energy collapse which befell every European nation” in recent years. Also all true.
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Call it the Davos disconnect. The bien pensant political and business leaders who show up to these confabs espouse a “liberal order” of democracy and free markets. But they then rely on the U.S. to enforce their values around the world while also generating sufficient global prosperity to allow them to fund their growth-killing welfare states and climate pieties at the expense of their own militaries.
As Mr. Trump reminded them, European leaders required sustained U.S. prodding before they ramped up defense spending to provide for their own security. They depend on the U.S. to lead them in supporting Ukraine as it fends off a Russian invasion that Europe was unable to deter or end.
Mr. Trump harps to an unhelpful degree on this helplessness, and his insults and bullying threats over Greenland have alienated Europe to a needless extent. His Greenland threats also aren’t playing well in Congress or with American voters.
But the barbs hit hard among the Davos crowd because they know they depend on the U.S. more than they’d like, and they know it’s their own fault. Yet even now that Mr. Trump is calling into question American support for allies, many of them assume the only alternative is to cozy up to China, at least economically.
Witness Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who won plaudits for his Davos speech Tuesday that mourned the end of the “rules-based order” and calling on middle powers such as Canada to form new, realpolitik alliances to stand up to the great powers.
“In a world of great-power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: compete with each other for favor or to combine to create a third path with impact,” Mr. Carney said—days after he traveled to Beijing to compete for favor from the Communist regime. Canada, with abundant natural resources including oil and a famously well-educated population, nonetheless has been a habitual defense-spending laggard within NATO (it barely meets the 2%-of-GDP target). “Middle power” indeed.
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The hypocrisy would be amusing if the deepening rift between the U.S. and its allies weren’t so dangerous. But China and Russia are watching. They see how easily Mr. Trump can be goaded into antagonizing staunch allies such as NATO partners, and how vulnerable those allies are. Our enemies would like nothing better than to see Greenland become the cause of a permanent Atlantic rift that blows up NATO.
They also see how distractible all these parties are. As NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned Wednesday, the Greenland fiasco is diverting attention from the more urgent problem of Ukraine.
The West needs statesmen who can settle the Greenland dispute in a way that enhances U.S. security and NATO. Let’s hope Mr. Trump’s “framework” begins to close the Davos divide.