Trump’s Davos Doctrine: A Muscular Reassertion Of The West

President Trump did something extraordinary in Davos. He gave a speech targeting our European allies, telling them that they need to up their game in terms of defense, economics, and their own national sovereignty.

Then he pried a deal away from Denmark with regard to Greenland.

The markets were very concerned about the possibility that President Trump was going to hit all of Europe with these gigantic tariffs based on a desire for sovereignty over all of Greenland.

But that is no longer the case. A deal has been cut.

The really big story here is how the President of the United States is calling on Europe to stand up for itself.

The president said that his goal in saying all of this wasn’t just to dunk on the Europeans. Obviously, his goal was to revitalize what he called a “precious” culture, shared by Americans and Europeans.

“The explosion of prosperity and conclusion and progress that built the West did not come from our tax cuts,” he stated. “It ultimately came from our very special culture. This is the precious inheritance that America and Europe have in common. We share it. But we have to keep it strong. We have to become stronger, more successful, and more prosperous than ever. We have to defend that culture and rediscover the spirit that lifted the West from the depths of the Dark Ages to the pinnacle of human achievement.”

He also suggested that Europeans have failed themselves in pursuing a green energy-based economy.

When the man’s right, the man is right.

The real message the president was there to deliver is that the Europeans ought to be both independent, but also recognize that they are reliant on the United States.

In that vein, he went after Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada. Carney gave a peculiar address with regard to the United States in which he suggested that the era of American dominance was over. And Trump basically said, well, that’s weird, since if it weren’t for us, your continent would be a little bit more at risk. We are your defensive shield. We’re building a golden dome that just by its very nature is going to be defending Canada.

“Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way,” Trump said. “They should be grateful also, but they’re not. I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn’t so grateful. They should be grateful that Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”

The president also articulated the favorite line of those of us on the Right, which is that if it had not been for the United States’ involvement in Europe, everyone would be speaking German and Japanese.

“The problem with them, though, is that we’ll be there for them 100%,” he said. “But I’m not sure that they’d be there for us if we gave them the call.”

You can see why the Europeans are feeling a bit peevish right now.

We’ll have to see how they react to everything that’s going on. Are we again entering a period of a multipolar world order, or is the president just flexing American muscles a little bit more than usual in an attempt to get everybody back on the same pro-America, pro-Western page? That remains a bit of an open question.

All of this ties into what the broader American orientation is toward the world. Is it America First, or is it America Alone? Is it a multipolar world order, or is it an American-led world order where we are more muscular in pursuit of our own interests, and we expect more from our allies in helping us out with those interests?

That remains the big question coming out of Davos. It was the big question going in.

I’m not sure that the question has been fully answered at this point in time.