Trump Comes to Davos — and Europe Still Isn’t Ready

The fight for the future of Greenland now looms over the gathering of political leaders and corporate executives in Davos with an intensity that would have seemed implausible even a year ago.

Yet the extraordinary has become routine in the age of Donald Trump. His latest threat – openly floating economic coercion to prise Greenland from European hands – is not a diplomatic slip or a throwaway provocation. It is a calculated performance, timed precisely for maximum effect at the World Economic Forum (WEF), a stage Trump understands far better than many of his critics would like to admit.

Trump’s relationship with Davos has always been paradoxical. He denounces “globalists” to rapturous applause at home, yet clearly relishes the attention of the very elite his base is taught to distrust. Last year, he beamed into the WEF from the White House just days after his inauguration, basking in the visible discomfort of an audience of European executives who were still struggling to determine whether his rhetoric was theatre or doctrine. When he casually referenced territorial ambitions involving Canada and Greenland, and dangled an “offer you can’t refuse” for those exporting into the US market, the awkward shuffling in the room spoke volumes.

This week, Trump arrives in Davos in person, carrying the full confidence of a leader who believes disruption is not merely a tactic but a governing philosophy. He will push the “Team USA” message at a moment of genuine bewilderment across Europe. His approach to Greenland – a strategically vital territory with deep ties to Denmark and, by extension, the European Union – encapsulates a worldview in which power is transactional, alliances are conditional, and sovereignty is negotiable if the price is right.

For Europeans, the issue is not only Greenland itself, important though it is for Arctic security, climate science, and transatlantic stability. It is the precedent Trump is seeking to establish. By using the threat of tariffs and market exclusion to pressure allies into territorial concessions, he is testing whether economic might can replace diplomacy. This is coercion masquerading as deal-making, and it strikes at the foundations of the rules-based international order that the EU claims to champion.

Yet it would be too easy, and too comforting, to focus criticism solely on Trump. European leaders have played their part in enabling this moment, largely through complacency and chronic unpreparedness. For years, warnings about Trump’s worldview were dismissed as exaggerated or temporary. Strategic autonomy was endlessly debated in Brussels conference rooms, but rarely translated into concrete capability or political resolve. As a result, Europe now finds itself reacting, once again, rather than shaping events.

Trump’s defenders argue that he is simply articulating American interests more bluntly than his predecessors. Bluntness, however, is not the real problem. The real damage lies in the erosion of trust. Alliances, particularly those underpinning NATO and Arctic cooperation, rely on predictability and shared purpose. When the US president treats European partners less as allies and more as reluctant counterparties in a hostile negotiation, the strain is obvious. What is equally obvious is Europe’s lack of a coherent, confident response.

The Davos setting amplifies these weaknesses. Trump understands that the WEF is not just a conference but a global amplifier. By forcing European leaders and corporate bosses to chase him through hotel corridors and panel discussions, he reinforces an image of dominance. The spectacle matters to him. Being pursued, questioned, and courted confirms his self-image as the indispensable disruptor-in-chief around whom others must orbit. European leaders, by contrast, often appear reactive, divided, and uncertain of their own leverage.

There is also a deeper failure at play. Trump’s Greenland gambit exposes not only American anxieties about a changing world, but Europe’s reluctance to confront uncomfortable realities. The Arctic is becoming more strategically significant as ice melts and new routes open. Washington fears being outpaced by rivals, particularly China and Russia. Instead of presenting a united European-Arctic strategy and offering the US a framework for cooperation, Europe has allowed the space to be filled by Trump’s zero-sum instincts.

Europe’s response so far has been cautious, perhaps excessively so. There is a persistent temptation in Brussels and national capitals to wait out the storm, to assume that Trump’s attention will soon drift elsewhere. This is a misreading of both the man and the moment. The lesson of his previous term was clear: disruption left unanswered becomes the new baseline. If economic coercion works once, it will be deployed again, whether over defence spending, technology regulation, or energy policy.

This is where the European Union now faces a test of credibility. Strategic autonomy cannot remain a slogan invoked only when Washington is inconvenient. It must mean the ability to anticipate shocks, to act collectively, and to defend European interests without hesitation. That does not require severing ties with the United States or indulging in reflexive anti-Americanism. It does require clarity, unity, and a willingness to accept short-term costs in defence of long-term principles.

Trump will leave Davos buoyed by the attention he receives. He will portray any resistance as proof that he alone has the courage to challenge a complacent establishment. European leaders may console themselves with carefully worded statements and private assurances. But beneath the surface, trust is fraying. Each threat, each transactional demand, accelerates the slow shift towards a more cautious, less deferential transatlantic relationship.

The Greenland episode should be read not as an isolated provocation, but as a warning. Trump’s America is prepared to weaponise interdependence in pursuit of its goals. Europe, meanwhile, remains dangerously underprepared for that reality. At Davos, amid the familiar rhetoric about cooperation and shared prosperity, the real question is whether European leaders are finally ready to confront disruption not with disbelief, but with resolve. The future of Greenland may be the immediate issue, but the deeper struggle is over whether Europe can act as a serious geopolitical actor when the pressure is on.