While the world waited Wednesday on what Donald Trump would utter on Greenland, what if we missed the bigger picture? That for 73 minutes, the US president before an audience of traditional transatlantic allies in Davos, hurled invectives and insults while doubling down on what’s now official US policy, the assessment that Europe’s a continent in civilizational decline, implied in that, overrun by non-Christians and non-whites. How do Europeans respond? Even far-right aficionados of MAGA have a hard time with the Greenland grab. Trump’s imminent threat has passed for now, but can European leaders establish a common framework for what lies ahead? How do what the Canadian prime minister called “middle powers” coalesce? And if the time for flattery and calling Trump daddy truly has passed, then what’s the next step for Europe, for NATO, for nations the world over that still believe in the rules-based order of old?
