US President Donald Trump has made an astonishing series of attacks apparently designed to humiliate allies France, the UK and Canada as the row over Greenland threatens to engulf the Davos forum.
In a flurry of social media posts and comments to reporters a day before he leaves for the elite gathering today, Trump leaked apparently private text messages from French President Emmanuel Macron.
His comments leave the transatlantic alliance in perhaps its most fragile state since World War II — and underscore that Trump is determined to make a show of power at the meeting in the Swiss ski resort.
Photo: Reuters
On the first anniversary of his inauguration for a second term that has already upended the global order, Trump took particular aim at Macron as their longstanding bromance appeared to implode.
Trump first expressed his disdain for Macron’s refusal to join his so-called “Board of Peace” for resolving conflicts worldwide.
“Nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon,” Trump told reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One in Florida, before threatening 200 percent tariffs on French wine and champagne.
A number of Western leaders harbor worries that the body, originally designed for Gaza, would create a shadow UN, while the inclusion of Russian President Vladimir Putin has caused alarm.
Shortly afterward Trump posted a private text message from Macron in which the French leader said: “I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland” and offered to organize a G7 summit in Paris with Russia attending on the sidelines, but Trump was far from finished.
From Air Force One he posted an altered picture of him meeting European leaders in the Oval Office — with a picture of not only the US, but Canada and Greenland covered in the stars and stripes.
The original photograph, taken when European leaders rushed to the White House in August last year with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to prop up US support for Kyiv, had already been mocked in some quarters as a sign of European weakness.
While Trump’s quest to take control of Greenland is the one that has shaken the world at the start of this year, he has also called for Canada to become the 51st US state.
He followed up on the posts with an image of himself holding the US flag on an icy landscape next to a sign saying “Greenland. US Territory, Est 2026,” accompanied by US Vice President J.D. Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Next in Trump’s sights was the UK, whose pride in its “special relationship” with the US has come under fresh strain from his designs on Greenland.
Trump lashed out at what he called London’s “great stupidity” for its deal to give Mauritius the Chagos Islands, an Indian Ocean archipelago that is home to the key Diego Garcia US-UK military base.
Trump in May last year had endorsed the deal after it was signed.
He linked the British decision to his current obsession, saying it was “another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired.”
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