Well Europe, Do You Get It Finally? Standing Up To Trump Works Better Than Prostrating Yourself
Now, do the same about Ukraine
Hello All,
A short piece on developments regarding the US, European states and Greenland. They tell us a good deal about how Europeans should deal with Trump in general and how they should change their policy towards Ukraine when it comes to the USA. Before that, however, just a quick note to say that Adam Kinzinger and I held a Substack Live session yesterday that you might find interesting. Was great fun to do—we covered US politics, Trump and Ukraine, and what Europe should be doing now.
After Trump made his latest gambit to take Greenland for the USA, which culminated in a series of escalating threats, including military, the American president has, temporarily at least, backed down. He said he would not impose the tariffs he first threatened two days earlier and seemed to say that he would instead try to negotiate a new deal over the island.
It was a notable pivot as just a few minutes earlier he had been publicly slandering European states and claiming that they had been NATO freeloaders living off the generosity of the USA.
The climbdown was also notable because it revealed that instead of constantly kissing Trump’s behind in the hope that he might crap a concession or two their way, the Europeans behaved very differently over Greenland. It will hopefully be a salutary lesson guiding their behavior going forward; one which they could use to improve their leverage over the USA and maybe even get more reliable military support for Ukraine.
What changed and why it mattered tells a very important story.
European Actions
The Europeans responded with concrete actions to Trump’s most recent
