Trump at Least for Now TACOed Over Greenland at Davos in Rambling Speech as His Poll Ratings Continue to Fall

Trump is more and more visibly coming apart, yet he has another almost three years in office. While he pulls back from the brink somewhat, as he did with his Liberation Day tariffs and apparently again at Dovos over Greenland due to harsh discipline from Mr. Market, there are perilous few others willing and able to stand up to him, which is the only way to deal effectively with bullies. President Xi has on trade with clampdowns on rare earth sales and other restrictions. Putin has in a way that is too sophisticated for Trump and his team to grok, which is by not yielding more than affirmatively resisting. Putin has deeply internalized his judo practice and Trump offers many opportunities to take advantage of his misguided use of force. Even then, with Xi, Trump has seen fit to violate de-escalatory understandings, leading to recriminations and further clampdowns by China.

While it’s impossible to read Trump’s mind, the most plausible explanation for his sudden climbdown after his persistent demand that the US had to own Greenland, that any alternative was inadequate, was the nearly 900 paint fall in the Dow, a plunge in the dollar, and a climb in bond yields. Further confirmation comes from the unseemly spectacle of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stooping to shame Deutsche Bank. Note that analysts are accorded a good deal of independence, and if the analyst was not fired, the fact of a mere groveling call is sus, yet another craven show of subordination to the mad bad Trump team. It also seems a stretch the Deutsche research note triggered the selloff, as opposed to intensifying it by confirming investor worries. Nevertheless, the business press dutifully fell in with Administration messaging. For example, from the Financial Times:

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Bessent said: “This notion that Europeans would be selling US assets came from a single analyst at Deutsche Bank, of course, the fake news media led by the Financial Times amplified it. The CEO of Deutsche Bank called to say that Deutsche Bank does not stand by that analyst.”

The note, written by Deutsche Bank’s chief forex strategist George Saravelos on Sunday, said that Europe held roughly $8tn of US bonds and equities, making it America’s largest creditor and underlining Washington’s reliance on foreign capital to finance persistent deficits.

“We spent most of last year arguing that for all its military and economic strength, the US has one key weakness: it relies on others to pay its bills via large external deficits. Europe, on the other hand, is America’s largest lender,” Saravelos wrote.

But irrespective of what Saravelos wrote, plenty of other political and economic experts were deeply alarmed about the Trump Greenland threat as fatally destructive to what remained of an already-wobbly post-World-War-II geopolitical order. Trump has and likely will continue to undermine international law, institutions, and informal yet once-powerful norms out of his bizarre belief that he and only he can and will determine the trajectory of world events. If you want to see a very thorough and persuasive view of what Trump might have wrought with his Greenland seizure threat, read Big Serge’s The Great Greenland War. While one can quibble with details of his scenarios, like the idea that Russia would take advantage of the instability to take the Baltics, they give a sense of how much this move could and likely would have set in motion events that would radically change the world order, and not in ways beneficial to the US.

The bigger point here is that virtually all close observers of the Trump Greenland threats, including your humble blogger, had thought Trump really was not going to back down over his demand to annex Greenland. However, we had stated in our last post on this topic that the one thing that might deter Trump was the Market Gods and the best strategy European leaders has was not to try to placate Trump but to play up the possibility of conflict. And while we may not know right away, recall that even US investors have been cutting US exposures over Trump worries, as the Financial Times recently headlined in a lead story on fund giant PIMCO.

Trump is for the moment now attempting a climbdown of getting various elements of a “deal” in lieu of a takeover. That may include trying to get concessions from NATO or the Europeans on Project Ukraine or other broader matters economic. But many outlets had pointed out that the US already had substantial military rights with respect to Greenland, and that the Danish government has offered all sorts of possible concessions save transfer of ownership. Also keep in mind that the idea that there is a lot of mineral wealth in Greenland that could be exploited is a fiction absent much greater progress of global warming. If multinationals could develop profitably there, they would have done so by now.

However, even now, Trump’s new story is ahead of reality. From BBC:

On Truth Social on Wednesday, the US president said: “We have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region.

“This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all Nato Nations.”

Diplomatic sources told the BBC’s US partner CBS that there was no agreement for American control or ownership of the autonomous Danish dependent territory….

Nato spokeswoman Allison Hart said in a statement after the meeting between Trump and Rutte: “Negotiations between Denmark, Greenland, and the United States will go forward aimed at ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold – economically or militarily – in Greenland.”

However, one of two Greenlandic lawmakers in the Danish parliament questioned why Nato would have any input on the island’s mineral wealth.

“Nato in no case has the right to negotiate on anything without us, Greenland. Nothing about us without us,” Aaja Chenmitz said.
According to US media, the potential plan could allow the US to build more military bases on the territory.

Officials who attended the Nato meeting on Wednesday told the New York Times a template for the suggested arrangement might be similar to UK bases on Cyprus, which are part of British Overseas Territories.

Under existing agreements with Denmark, the US can bring as many troops as it wants to Greenland. It already has more than 100 military personnel permanently stationed at its Pituffik base in the north-western tip of the territory.

And note that for the moment Trump has only sworn off the use of arms and tariffs. Again from the BBC:

In his first speech in six years to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, Trump said he was “seeking immediate negotiations” to acquire Greenland, but insisted the US would not take the territory by force.

“We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive force. We’d be unstoppable, but we won’t do that,” Trump said. “I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”

He also urged world leaders to allow the US to take control of Greenland from Denmark, saying: “You can say yes and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember.”

In other words, Trump may still get what he wants, via a sale rather than a seizure, by continuing to have temper tantrums and getting the EU to fold as quickly as Machado did. If the Europeans were clever, they could take a page from Russia’s book and opt to to along with negotiations, but insist that they be structured and get to detailed treaty-type agreements, of course for the protection of the US as well as for them to be able to be ratified by relevant official bodies. Team Trump is simply incapable of this sort of thing. Any effort to do this would drag or peter out

However, there’s plenty of precedent for government officials cleverly packaging existing authorities and presenting them as a shiny, new consequential scheme. One was Mario Draghi’s Outright Monetary Transactions scheme, which he presented as a “whatever it took” facility when it contained absolutely no new measures. But investors nevertheless reacted to the PR as opposed to the content and bid wobbly assets up.

But let’s return to the bigger issues: Trump’s Davos speech provided yet more evidence that he is losing it cognitively as well as in terms of his emotional self regulation, although we hardly need more evidence after his toddler-esque demand that Maria Corina Machado turn over her Nobel prize to him and then his statement that his resolve to take Greenland was to avenge the Nobel Committee diss of not giving it to him in the first place..

There’s a lot of commentary on the numerous gaffes in the Davos speech, from Trump slurring to ranting about windmills and incorrectly depicting China as not having windfarms and banging on yet again about having the Presidency stolen from him in 2020. The Guardian has one tally. The New Republic gave a good take in Trump Embarrasses All of America in Slurred, Disjointed Davos Speech:

President Trump delivered yet another rambling, long-winded speech Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, using the massive world stage to rail against windmills, complain for the umpteenth time about how the 2020 election was rigged, reaffirm his desire to seize Greenland from Denmark, and take credit for every good thing in the world.

The room was dead silent virtually the entire time.

“Certain places in Europe are not even recognizable frankly, anymore. They’re not recognizable. And we can argue about it, but there’s no argument,” Trump said early in his speech to the room full of Europeans. “Friends come back from different places—I don’t wanna insult anybody—and say ‘I don’t recognize it.’ And that’s not in a positive way.… It’s not heading in the right direction.”….

Trump then of course got to Greenland, accidentally mixing it up with Iceland for nearly the entire time he spoke about it.

“Until the last few days, when I told them about Iceland, they loved me,” Trump said, meaning to say Greenland. “They called me daddy … very smart man said, ‘He’s our daddy.’”

We’ll use The Hill as convenient one-stop shopping for how official DC is reacting to the latest Trump whipsaw. It appears not well. From a new story, NATO allies take on Trump as Greenland threats ‘rupture’ global order:

The leaders of some of America’s closest allies used the Davos summit this week to confront a new world order under President Trump in which the U.S. is an unreliable partner, at best, and increasingly viewed as an adversary.

The leaders of Canada and France were among those speaking out during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, calling Trump’s efforts to take control of Greenland a wake-up call for the need to establish military and economic power that does not depend on the United States.

However, one European diplomat told The Hill that Trump’s remarks offered little relief given his continued hostility toward NATO allies and the veiled threats in his combative speech.

“They have a choice. You can say ‘yes’ and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember,” Trump said.

But just hours later, Trump posted on TruthSocial that he reached a “framework of a future deal” over Greenland with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who has positioned himself as a main bridgebuilder between Europe and Washington….

Jim Townsend, adjunct senior fellow in the Transatlantic Security Program with the Center for a New American Security, said Trump is too unpredictable for anyone to take the president at his word.

Shorter: even the normally internally-focused Beltway is waking up to the severity of Trump’s sabotage of US interests. Wired made the same point more starkly in We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower:

Imagine you were Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping and you woke up a year ago having magically been given command of puppet strings that control the White House. Your explicit geopolitical goal is to undermine trust in the United States on the world stage. You want to destroy the Western rules-based order that has preserved peace and security for 80 years, which allowed the US to triumph as an economic superpower and beacon of hope and innovation for the world. What exactly would you do differently with your marionette other than enact the ever more reckless agenda that Donald Trump has pursued since he became president last year?

Nothing.

The sugar high of the Caracas raid seems to have faded awfully quickly. Trump did wisely back down over the plan to attack Iran when the theocratic state shut down the Internet and thwarted the use of roughly 40,000 Starlink terminals used to coordinate violence at protests and further regime change operations. Alastair Crooke and Mohamed Marandi have reported that Iranian officials have been using the Starlink connections to track down the agitators, meaning that yet more of the networks that Israel built in Iran over many years are being destroyed. Nevertheless, this campaign still seems to be moving ahead as there are many press and Twitter report of naval assets moving to the Middle East.

Trump is also launching his Board of Peace, which many see as an attempt to form a new power center to compete with BRICS. Good luck with that. It will never go much of anywhere with the doddering Trump insisting at putting himself at the center.

Domestically, Trump is not doing at all well, with his hyper-aggressive actions often backfiring. Again, The Hill provides a useful barometer. In the last 24 hours, it report that another epic Trump fight, over control of the Fed, is going pear shaped, via Supreme Court voices hesitation at allowing Trump to fire Fed’s Lisa Cook and DOJ probe throws wrench into Trump’s Fed plans. The latter article explains:

The Justice Department’s criminal probe into the Federal Reserve is casting a shadow over President Trump’s plans for the central bank.

Trump is expected to announce his choice to succeed Fed Chair Jerome Powell within the next few weeks. But the threat of criminal charges against Powell may make it harder for Trump to replace the Fed chair and leave his mark on the bank.

And Trump’s continuing violence by ICE is adding to the continued decline in his approval ratings. From polling maven G. Elliott Morris’s update yesterday:

• Immigration approval declining: Trump’s approval on immigration has dropped to 44% approve / 53% disapprove (net -9), and his deportation policy is at 42% / 54% (net -12). Border security remains his only positive issue at 50% / 46% (net +4). Trump’s numbers on all three have declined since our last poll in October, 2025.
• Presidential approval: 40% approve of Trump’s job performance; 58% disapprove (net -18). This is a new low in our tracking. Just 27% of political independents approve of the president’s job performance (63% disapprove).
• Generic ballot: Democrats lead Republicans among registered voters 51% to 43%, with 6% of voters undecided.
• Democrats trusted on top issues: On the issues Americans rank as most important — prices, health care, and the economy — Democrats hold the advantage over Republicans over which party is seen as “best.”
• Venezuela: 45% oppose the military strike; 53% oppose the U.S. temporarily running the country
• ACA subsidies: 64% want Congress to restore the expired health insurance subsidies. 57% blame Republicans in Congress or Donald Trump for the coverage gap (26% say Democrats).

Even putting aside Trump’s eroding cognition and self-control, his preferred tactics of radical unpredictability plus “flooding the zone” (acting aggressively, often violently on many fronts at once) are destabilizing in a way that is ultimately self-destructive to him and American interests. He is pumping too much energy into the system. At some point, like water becoming steam, it will undergo a state change to something more chaotic, be it a market/economic meltdown, domestic disorder exceeding 1968 levels, and/or a major world conflict. Do what you can do to secure your position in the meantime.