{"id":259357,"date":"2026-01-23T07:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T07:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/259357\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T07:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T07:27:09","slug":"trumps-greenland-taco-and-carneys-rupture-warning-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/259357\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Greenland Taco and Carney\u2019s rupture warning \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Davos 2026 seemed to collapse into what physicists call a singularity, a point of infinite density from which nothing can escape. Its name was Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There were several crises overshadowing this year\u2019s World Economic Forum (WEF)<\/a> \u2013 Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, AI bubble fears, revolution in Iran but the US president<\/a>\u2019s increasingly hostile stance on Greenland subsumed everything.<\/p>\n

The possibility that one Nato member might forcibly take another\u2019s territory is anathema to the forum\u2019s vision of a rules-based, multilateral system.<\/p>\n

Since his successful military operation in Venezuela <\/a>at the start of the year, Trump had been ratcheting up the rhetoric on Greenland<\/a>, hinting at possible military action, threatening tariffs against eight European countries if he didn\u2019t get his way, while deriding Europe as weak and backward.<\/p>\n

It provoked the biggest rift in transatlantic relations since the second World War, one that will leave scar tissue.<\/p>\n

His attendance at Davos took on monumental importance, a clash between Trump\u2019s world and the old world. <\/p>\n

In the end, he Taco-ed (as in Trump always chickens out). Not for the first time, he marched his troops to the top of the hill, triggering a moment of maximum global tension, only to disperse them and leave us all wondering what the hell that was all about. <\/p>\n

His Greenland climbdown <\/a>came hours after a rambling speech, in which he asserted America\u2019s supremacy, confused Greenland with Iceland and claimed only \u201cstupid\u201d people buy wind turbines.<\/p>\n

After a meeting with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, he said he had found a \u201csolution\u201d and was therefore rescinding his tariff threat.<\/p>\n

Details are scant, but it seems to involve Denmark ceding sovereignty over small areas of Greenland where the US would build military bases, not dissimilar to the UK\u2019s sovereign bases on Cyprus.<\/p>\n

Talk of Trump\u2019s bid to annex Greenland dominated Davos <\/a>when Europe\u2019s real security threat is in the east, in Ukraine, where resistance is gradually being worn down.<\/p>\n

Russia was the \u201cunequivocal winner\u201d in Europe\u2019s rift with the US, said the Republic\u2019s EU commissioner for justice Michael McGrath.<\/p>\n

Trump paradoxically claims he needs Greenland to fend off Russia\u2019s security threat, while at the same time, he appears to be sympathetic to Russian war demands in Ukraine and inviting Vladimir Putin to join his proposed Board of Peace for Gaza, which had a launch in Davos on Thursday. <\/p>\n

Either way, his designs on the largely self-governing Danish territory have forced Europe to confront an uncomfortable truth: how much it needs Washington\u2019s money and military might. <\/p>\n

The grovelling and knee-bending we\u2019ve seen from European leaders over the past year has been cringey and seems only to have fed Trump\u2019s megalomania. <\/p>\n

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, delivered perhaps the biggest rebuke of the European position, claiming leaders on the Continent were complicit in Trump\u2019s wrecking ball agenda because they have failed to stand up to him. European efforts to negotiate with Trump, he said, were not diplomacy but stupidity.<\/p>\n

\"\"Old order \u2018not coming back\u2019 as Trump overshadows World Economic Forum<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no diplomacy with Donald Trump: he\u2019s a T.rex. You mate with him, or he devours you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Newsom, a vocal Trump critic, was barred from entering the US pavilion at Davos, a reflection of the pettiness that now passes for politics in the US. <\/p>\n

Judging from the hardening of European rhetoric, there\u2019s an acknowledgment that its fawning approach to Trump has failed and that it must get tougher. <\/p>\n

The prospect of money managers in Europe weaponising capital, selling off US treasuries, was raised earlier this week in a note by Deutsche Bank as a way for the bloc to retaliate in the face of Trump\u2019s continued threats.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy added to the EU-bashing, claiming EU leaders were stuck in \u201cGreenland mode\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cEurope must learn how to defend itself,\u201d he said. \u201cSending 14 or 40 soldiers to Greenland \u2013 what is that meant to achieve? What message does that send to Putin? To China? And perhaps, most importantly, what message does it send to Denmark?\u201d<\/p>\n

But this year\u2019s Davos was a tale of two speeches. If Trump\u2019s represented one side of the geopolitical divide, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney made the case for the other.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that US hegemony, up to now, had created an imperfect or false rules-based order where the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient and where trade rules were enforced asymmetrically on the basis of economic and military power.<\/p>\n

But this imperfect rules-based order had been \u201cuseful\u201d, helping to provide \u201cpublic goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality,\u201d Carney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: compete with each other for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact. <\/p>\n

\u201c[We] argue the middle powers must act together because if we\u2019re not at the table, we\u2019re on the menu,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney said the old world order is “not coming back”. Video: Reuters <\/p>\n

Articulate and politically astute, Carney stole the show. <\/p>\n

Tensions between Europe and the US are unlikely to end with a deal on Greenland (there are even doubts over whether that resolves the row). <\/p>\n

European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde reportedly walked out of a high-profile Davos dinner, hosted by BlackRock chief Larry Fink, during a speech by US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, which was heavily critical of Europe, a flash of what European leaders are really feeling behind their Trump\u2019s appeasement noises.<\/p>\n

Lutnick was apparently at every gig in town, berating Europe and boasting about America\u2019s superpower economy. <\/p>\n

In a Bloomberg interview at the event, he argued that outsourcing to low-cost producers failed workers in Ohio and Michigan, crediting the US administration\u2019s tariffs for GM\u2019s (General Motors) 60 per cent yearly stock jump and similar gains at Ford.<\/p>\n

It was a reminder of where Trump\u2019s economic agenda originates.<\/p>\n

The US has lost close to five million manufacturing jobs since 2001, the year China joined the World Trade Organisation.<\/p>\n

The decline has been unprecedented by US standards and has created, or at least compounded, what\u2019s often referred to as a rust belt from the midwest to the Great Lakes, an area that spans from western New York to Michigan and north Illinois and encompasses states like West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana.<\/p>\n

It was once the backbone of US industry, but it has now become synonymous with economic decline, population loss and urban decay.<\/p>\n

If Trump\u2019s anti-federalist politicking dominated this year\u2019s Davos, the counternarrative is that he led the largest-ever delegation into the hub of international co-operation and consensus-building.<\/p>\n

Even Elon Musk, one of the most outspoken critics of the event, wanted in on the action. He has previously criticised the gathering as elitist, unaccountable and disconnected from ordinary people, but got a speaking slot on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Insiders say many US firms are merely playing along with Trump, even sucking up to him, and perhaps using his power to leverage the EU for less regulation, but behind the scenes, they haven\u2019t changed tack and are secretly hoping he will be hobbled in the upcoming US midterm elections. The polls suggest voters have soured on Trump and the Democrats will win big. <\/p>\n

Watching Apple boss Tim Cook shower Trump with gifts while announcing big domestic investments gives a false impression of what\u2019s going on, say insiders.<\/p>\n

These companies haven\u2019t changed their investment plans, haven\u2019t pulled their offshore operations and haven\u2019t changed course in any meaningful way.<\/p>\n

This might explain why, despite all the noise around Trump\u2019s America First agenda, the Irish Government reported record corporate taxes last year while the IDA, the State\u2019s investment agency, supported a record 323 investments, including 78 \u201cnew-name\u201d investments, most of them from the US.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the IDA hosted its annual dinner at the Davos forum, a big set-piece event for the agency to highlight the Republic\u2019s investment credentials.<\/p>\n

The invite list was kept confidential so US executives could keep their heads below the parapet. <\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin gave the keynote address and the following day held bilaterals with several big US tech companies, including Apple, Meta and Microsoft.<\/p>\n

He said he had received positive feedback \u201cin terms of the resilience of the Irish economy and the attractiveness of Ireland still as a location for investment\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also highlighted that the State had been invited to join Trump\u2019s controversial Gaza peace board but said no decision had yet been made.<\/p>\n

The US president is seeking $1 billion from countries for a permanent place on a board of peace aimed at resolving conflicts. The board was originally intended to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza, but the current iteration has broadened it to global conflicts and does not reference Gaza, a move which critics fear is designed to supplant the UN.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said he could not see \u201cany scenario\u201d in which the Republic can participate. Martin, meanwhile, was due to discuss the board at Thursday evening\u2019s emergency meeting of EU leaders.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Davos was pitched as the last-chance saloon to save the old world order. Before the event, WEF president B\u00f8rge Brende conceded it was taking place against \u201cthe most complicated geopolitical backdrop since the WEF was founded\u201d.<\/p>\n

The think tank\u2019s Global Risks Report, published on the eve of the summit, pinpointed trade wars, actual wars and economic disputes as the biggest threats to global stability in 2026, a reflection of the breakdown in consensus-building.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, 56 years after it was founded, its pulling power remains. This year\u2019s event commanded a record attendance with more than 60 heads of state or government, as well as 55 economy and finance ministers, and more than 800 chief executives or chairmen\/women of companies. It included a whopping 200 discussion panels.<\/p>\n

Geopolitics is fraying, but a lot of the old forces remain, not least Davos itself. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Davos 2026 seemed to collapse into what physicists call a singularity, a point of infinite density from which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,120986,969,113,3024,15000,61,60,1843,1963,45379],"class_list":{"0":"post-259357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-davos","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-greenland","13":"tag-ida-ireland","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-micheal-martin","17":"tag-us-tariffs","18":"tag-world-economic-forum"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}