Are the European leaders playing the long game?

[edhopper]

Going along with him just enough to avoid a true economic war. They know he is gone in 3 years and nothing he does now will stand once he is gone.
I am not saying they are right or it will pan out this way, just wondering if they are not vigorously opposing him because they think this is temporary?

[rampartd]

1. they are hoping he will just go away

i'm not so hopeful. but maybe it would be convenient ....

[Javaman]

2. nope.

I honestly believe that if we don't hold the orange asshole and his room full of dopes accountable, relations with Europe is permanently damaged.

if we grow a spine, congressionally, and have trials and the orange asshole is held accountable, then there is a real chance to repair relations.

but remember this, relations will never ever be the same.

the orange asshole and his room full of dopes have damaged our place in the world so much that the world realized that they don't need us as much as they once thought.

[edhopper]

10. I am not suggesting WE do this

I am asking if the European leaders are doing this.

[Javaman]

12. my original response is still the same

"the orange asshole and his room full of dopes have damaged our place in the world so much that the world realized that they don't need us as much as they once thought."

they are moving on.

our trade relations and alliances will not be the same

if we ever hope to get back in good standing with them, it's decades down the road.

Europe has a long memory.

[Ocelot II]

3. I'm sure they are. They are much better at this game than Trump.

(But then, so are my cats.). Mark Rutte, the Sec Gen of NATO, is said to be a very smooth, clever diplomat, as was his predecessor; and what Trump doesn't understand but which Rutte does, is that NATO has no authority to negotiate anything on behalf of an individual country. Rutte can't and wouldn't have made any promises about the ownership or control of Greenland. But he probably blew a lot of flattering smoke up Trump's ass that made him believe there would be "a deal" at some future time for US control of Greenland which NATO would work out with Denmark for Trump's benefit. And because Trump is stupid and completely susceptible to flattery, he thinks there's a deal, or a concept of a deal. For now NATO seems to be safe, and they'll just string Trump along until he's out of office or dead, whichever comes first.

[Fiendish Thingy]

4. Who's "going along with him"?

Trump spouted some bullshit about having “concepts of an agreement” that grants the US unlimited access to Greenland with no expiration date.

That’s exactly what the current treaty allows right now, and has for decades

I agree that many of the leaders hope they can just wait out the next three years, despite Carney’s speech declaring there is no going back to the way things were.

The leaders who understand that are developing their Plan B for how to move forward, survive and thrive in this new era. Giving Trump space to trumpet his “new deal” just gives them some breathing room to put their economic, trade and defence plans into place, as Carney has been doing in Canada.

I think we will see France, Germany and the Scandinavian nations ramp up their transition effort to the new reality over the next year or two. Hopefully the UK and some of the smaller nations will follow suit, or they will be left behind. Italy will probably have to wait for a change in leadership before taking the required steps to survive in the new era- hopefully not too long.

[Ocelot II]

5. Trump is as dumb as a box of hammers. I'm sure someone has told him repeatedly

that the existing treaty with Denmark/Greenland has always given the US pretty much carte blanche over the use and operation of the military base and anything else needed for national security purposes in the Arctic. But he's obsessed with owning things because he's a stupid, greedy little man. So on behalf of NATO (but not on behalf of Denmark/Greenland, over which NATO has no territorial authority), Rutte managed some diplomatic sleight-of-hand to make him think they had a "deal" that at some future date would somehow transfer control of Greenland to the US. But it's going to take time, of course. So now Europe just has to hold it all together until Trump is gone, however that might happen.

[Johnny2X2X]

8. Oil

Greenland is about oil. They want to drill there.

[Ocelot II]

9. Greenland has offshore oil and other mineral resources, but

despite decades of exploration, so far there has been little development because of the extreme difficulty and expense of extracting them. Greenland has little infrastructure, and it would take years to create one that would support mining or drilling. Trump wants Greenland because it's big (but not nearly as big as he thinks it is). It's an ego trip for him.

[yaesu]

6. They are playing the survival game, trapped on an island with a psychopath who has the most food, tools AND

the hidden Immunity Idol.

[DFW]

7. They can't afford the time.

Elections, both national and purely parliamentary (vaguely akin to our midterms) will be held in many EU countries well before 2029. Macron looks like he’ll be out by then, probably replaced by someone FAR worse. France hates leaders with common sense almost as much as we do. The last one they had lost the 1981 election, and he (Giscard) saw his best friend, Germany’s Social Democratic Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, get tossed out by actions of his own party just a year later. Germany, to its credit, did elect Angela Merkel to four terms later on, but she owed that in part to the Social Democrats’ abandoning common sense, and nominating faceless, sloganeering bureaucrats for chancellor, and after decades of stagnation under crushing rule of uncaring all-powerful bureaucrats, it’s no wonder the SPD, which once won the Chancellorship, now polls at under 20% (!!!!) much of the time.

So, the EU (and GB) is unlikely to speak with one voice when local issues take up so much of their time. That goes out the window if Putin gets more aggressive, or Trump moves against a NATO ally. They will not lose sight of either. Sure, train strikes in France, Belgium and Germany can and will make life for working people (including me) miserable short term, but one can’t compare that to Putin sending 125 bombing drones per night into your city. My nephew, who just returned from over 3 years in the Ukraine, gave us a first hand account of what that was like.

[usonian]

11. They have the anti-coercion instrument.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/01/21/the-12-people-who-hold-trumps-world-cup-in-their-hands-00739998

The world cup. Will athletes be arrested and detained?

YES.

San Francisco Giants outfielder Jung Hoo Lee detained by immigration agents at LAX Airport, team confirms
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143603031

Will they bend over and "Thank You Sir. May I have another?"
Probably so.