Analysts Suggest Europe Learned a Lesson on Trump

The Davos summit is over, with the big news centering on President Trump's speech rejecting the idea of using military force to take Greenland. He also called off his threat to impose tariffs on nations that oppose his push to assume control of the territory. In the aftermath, a common theme has emerged in analyses of the summit:

• Trump "backed down," in the eyes of the conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. "And he did so after financial markets, European allies and the U.S. Congress raised objections." It shows "that, despite his over-the-top rhetoric, Mr. Trump can't get away with whatever he likes. He is constrained by democratic institutions in the U.S., the necessity of maintaining alliances abroad, and public opinion as measured by polls and investors."

• A Washington Post analysis by Ellen Francis suggests that European leaders learned a lesson this week about Trump: "Pushing back works." The leaders stood up to his tariff threats with a level of unity they had not previously demonstrated, she writes. "For advocates of taking a tougher line with Trump, the president's climbdown regarding the strategic Arctic territory was proof that retaliation—not conciliation—is the answer to his hardball tactics."
• Frequent Trump critic Paul Krugman agrees. "Europe has learned a lesson," he writes on his Substack blog. "Appeasing a bully doesn't work, especially when, as anyone watching Trump's Davos rant could see, that bully is experiencing rapid cognitive decline. But standing up to him does work."
• As a counter to the above, Fred Fleitz writes at American Greatness that "Trump owned Davos." In his view, "European leaders worked themselves up into a full-blown hysteria" over an imagined US invasion of Greenland. "But when Trump spoke at the Davos Summit on Wednesday, these hair-on-fire claims melted away in the face of his masterful speech," he writes.
• Still, most of the coverage echoes the other view, as in the Economist: "The moral is that, to get America's president to retreat, you have to convince him that you will impose a price on him," the analysis reads. "In most of their dealings with Mr Trump, European leaders have treated him with sycophancy truffled by the odd, muted objection. This time, they were more assertive and it worked."