European leaders study to say 'no' to Donald Trump

[ad_1] LONDON (AP) — No extra fawning reward. No extra well mannered workarounds and old-style diplomacy. And nobody is looking Donald Trump “daddy” now.

European leaders who scrambled for a year to determine cope with an emboldened American president in his second time period edged nearer to saying “no,” or one thing diplomatically prefer it, to his disregard for worldwide legislation and his calls for for his or her territory. Trump’s vow to take over Greenland and punish any country that resists , appears to have been the crucible.

“Pink strains” have been deemed to have been crossed this yr when Trump abruptly revived his demand that america “completely” should rule Greenland, the semiautonomous area that's a part of NATO ally Denmark. That pushed even essentially the most mild-mannered diplomats to situation sharp warnings in opposition to Trump, whom they'd flattered with royal treatment and fawning praise .

“Britain won't yield” its assist for Greenland’s sovereignty, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer mentioned. A number of of the continent’s leaders mentioned “Europe won't be blackmailed” over Greenland.

“Threats haven't any place amongst allies,” mentioned Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

The powerful diplomatic discuss across the showdown final week in Davos, Switzerland, was not the one issue pressuring Trump. U.S. congressional elections are approaching in November amid a sinking stock market and wilting approval ratings . European leaders additionally aren't the primary to face in Trump’s manner throughout his second time period — see Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell .

However the dramatic turnabout amongst Europe’s elite, from “appeasing” Trump to defying him, provides clues within the ongoing effort amongst some nations of say “no” to a president who hates listening to it and is understood to retaliate.

“We wish a bit of ice for world safety, and so they gained’t give it,” Trump instructed his viewers on the World Financial Discussion board. “You'll be able to say sure, and we can be very appreciative. Or you'll be able to say no, and we'll keep in mind.”

Lesson 1: Communicate as one In latest days, Europe provided considerable refusals to associate with Trump, from his Greenland demand and joining his new Board of Peace and even to what Canada’s Mark Carney known as the “fiction” that the alliance capabilities for the advantage of any nation greater than essentially the most highly effective. The second marked a unity amongst European leaders that they'd struggled to attain for a yr.

“When Europe is just not divided, after we stand collectively and after we are clear and robust additionally in our willingness to face up for ourselves, then the outcomes will present,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen mentioned. “I believe we've got realized one thing.”

Federiksen herself exemplified the training curve. A yr in the past, she and different leaders have been on their heels and largely responding to the Trump administration. She discovered it essential to tell reporters in February 2025 , “We're not a nasty ally,” after Vice President JD Vance had mentioned Denmark was “not being an excellent ally.”

Trump is transactional. He has little use for diplomacy and no “want (for) worldwide legislation,” he instructed The New York Instances this month. Therein lay the disconnect between sometimes collaborative European leaders and the Republican president when he blazed again into the White Home saying he needed the U.S. to take over Greenland, Panama and maybe even Canada.

“In Trump’s first time period, Europe didn’t know what to anticipate and tried to cope with him by utilizing the outdated guidelines of diplomacy, with the expectation that, in the event that they saved speaking to him in measured phrases, that he would change his habits and transfer into the membership,” mentioned Mark Shanahan, affiliate professor of political engagement on the College of Surrey,.

“It’s very exhausting for different leaders who cope with one another by means of the niceties of a rules-based system and diplomatic dialog,” Shanahan mentioned. “It's exhausting for them to vary.”

5 months after Trump’s inauguration final yr, along with his Greenland risk within the air, European leaders had gotten their heads round Trump administration sufficient to drag off a meeting of NATO nations within the Netherlands. NATO members agreed to contribute extra and extensively gave Trump credit score for forcing them to modernize.

Secretary-Common Mark Rutte, generally known as the coalition’s “Trump whisperer,” likened the president’s function quieting the Iran-Israel struggle to a “daddy” intervening in a schoolyard brawl.

Lesson 2: Think about saying no — and make decisions accordingly Conventional diplomacy exists to protect potentialities of working collectively. That usually means avoiding saying a flat “no” if potential. However Trump’s Greenland gambit was so stark a risk from one NATO member to a different that Greenland’s prime minister really mentioned the phrase.

“Sufficient,” Jens-Frederik Nielsen mentioned in a press release shortly after Trump’s remarks Jan. 5. “No extra strain. No extra hints. No extra fantasies about annexation.”

That performed a component in setting the tone. Denmark’s chief mentioned any such invasion of Greenland would mark the end of NATO and urged alliance members to take the risk critically.

They did, issuing assertion after assertion rejecting the renewed risk. Trump responded final weekend from his golf course in Florida with a risk to cost a ten% import tax inside a month on items from eight European nations — Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland. The speed, he wrote, would climb to 25% on June 1 if no deal was in place for “the Full and Complete buy of Greenland” by america.

Lesson 3: Reject Trump’s big-power paradigm Trump’s combating phrases lit a fireplace amongst leaders arriving in Davos. However they appeared to acknowledge, too, that the broader Trump world left him weak.

“Trump was in a reasonably weak place as a result of he has a number of different looming issues happening,” domestically, together with an upcoming U.S. Supreme Courtroom determination on his tariffs and a backlash to immigration raids in Minnesota , mentioned Duncan Snidal, professor emeritus of worldwide relations at Oxford College and the College of Chicago.

Canada’s Carney mentioned no by reframing the query not as being about Greenland, however about whether or not it was time for European nations to construct energy collectively in opposition to a “bully” — and his reply was sure.

With out naming the U.S. or Trump, Carney spoke bluntly: Europe, he mentioned, ought to reject the massive energy’s “coercion” and “exploitation.” It was time to simply accept, he mentioned, {that a} “rupture” within the alliance, not a transition, had occurred.

Unsaid, Snidel identified, was that the rupture was very new, and although it might be difficult to repair sooner or later, doing so beneath adjusted guidelines stays in U.S. and European pursuits past Trump’s presidency. “It’s too good a deal for all of them to not,” Snidel mentioned.

Lesson 4: Train warning Earlier than Trump stepped away from the rostrum in Davos, he had begun to again down.

He canceled his threat to make use of “pressure” to take over Greenland. Not lengthy after, he reversed himself fully, asserting “the framework” for a deal that may make his tariff risk pointless.

Trump instructed Fox Enterprise that “we’re going to have whole entry to Greenland,” beneath the “framework,” with out divulging what which may imply.

Frederiksen hit the warning button once more. In a press release, she mentioned, “We can't negotiate on our sovereignty.”

In different phrases: “No.”

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