A new year and a familiar sensation. He wouldn’t do that, would he? You know, he's just gone and done it. Wow.
This refers, of course, to Donald Trump and his ability to surprise, to set the news agenda, to send the rest of the world skedaddling to respond.
He did it in his first term as President – many is the time you would wake up to find a tweet from POTUS blowing a hole in what until then had seemed like an orderly day ahead. Now, in his second reign, he is doing it again, except bigger and bolder, determined to leave a lasting legacy, to claim his place on Mount Rushmore (seriously).
In reality, he has been following the same playbook all his life. He’s a loner, someone who does not dance to the tune of others, who does not play by their rules. Not for him memberships of clubs – unless they are his own – or worthy bodies and talking shops. That’s not how you steal a march in Manhattan real estate, not by sharing your thoughts and ideas with rivals, not honestly anyway. He’s attending this year’s Davos, but that will be to lambast and belittle. He’s not going because he relishes the opportunity to discuss a collective response to climate change, to hear views on solving world poverty or diversity and inclusivity. No chance.
A property developer is always searching for the edge, the gap, the site that someone else has missed or wants but can’t get. They operate from instinct, not from a manual. They have a mental “to-do” list, which they might commit to a scrap of paper, to a few desultory notes, written by hand in block capitals in Biro with lots of arrows, but that is about it. Scoring, stealing a march, is their obsession, gnawing away at them, dominating their thinking. They must have it, whatever it takes. Hang the risk, they must have it.
That’s his mindset, today writ large on the global stage. Trump says he likes strong leaders. It’s true, he does. What he sees is people like himself, unafraid to take their own decisions. They’re fellow winners – he hates “losers” – who speak his language. They’re also can-do, will-do guys.
Where that leaves everyone else is not his concern. In Britain, it has left Keir Starmer perplexed and fuming, blinking furiously, open-mouthed at seeing legal textbooks and summits and agreed agendas tossed aside. Starmer was reduced to wishing “to establish the facts” when the seizing of the Venezuelan president was played out on our TV screens – The Donald made sure of that. It was pathetic and weak. The UK Prime Minister did not know what to say and it showed.
He was not alone. European leaders were similarly thrown. A joint statement emerged on Tuesday but it was thin on detail.
As ever in these situations, a question that is quickly asked is what next? Not for Venezuela, although that matters, but from a self-interested standpoint, what else has Trump got in his thin notebook? They would like to suppose it was marked “diplomatic” (Ha! Ha!) or “foreign affairs” (never). No, if his billet-doux has a title, it will be “TARGETS” or “HITS” or “BILLIONS”.
What it will contain, to the consternation of Europe, is “GREENLAND”. What it will not, again to the distress of London, Brussels, Paris, Berlin etc is “Nato”. Nor will there be reference to “DENMARK”.
He doesn’t care. He never has. If he stopped to consider how his plans might go down all those years ago, he would not have got anything built. Buy it, do it, see them in court if they wish, negotiate a solution but you’ve got the upper hand because you own it and it’s yours. Then move on.
There is an alternative way of assessing Trump’s stealth drone, Delta Force approach – gunboat diplomacy is so old school – which is that he is highlighting the inertia, the inability of those who cavil, who act as judge and jury. Maduro was a bad leader, plenty of folks were agreed on that. Yet nothing happened. They awarded the Nobel to Maduro’s opponent, something that pained Trump hugely. He would show them what they could do with their blessed prize. María Corina Machado has not been able to set foot in Caracas since journeying to Oslo to accept the plaudits and the cheque (that hurt). She can now. This is how you do peace, Trump-style.
He did it with Gaza. His intervention and video of a golfing paradise by the Mediterranean was a wake-up call and galvanised the Arab nations and the West. Same with Ukraine. He got Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his office and told him what for, in front of the cameras. JD did it with Nato.
Now Greenland or GREENLAND! The spluttering and indignation in European capitals only serves to emphasise what they have failed to do. The truth is that the northern part of the vast Arctic island is not only exposed naturally and geographically but security-wise. It should be a Nato fortress and it is not.
Throw into the mix, a melting ice-cap (Trump accepts climate change when it suits him) and the presence of accessible natural resources, and the possibility of Russia and China eyeing a lucrative trophy (back to how it was, chasing the block at 725 Fifth between East 56th and 57th and scheming for Trump Tower) and it’s a no-brainer. The brains as they like to see themselves can strut and foam as much as they like. They’ve been following that path for decades and taking the US for granted, counting on the dollar, while not doing anything. Tough. That’s GREENLAND crossed off.
Next?
