Can Europe Resist American Coercion?

The competition among global political and economic elites to attend U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was a symbol of the history-making at stake. After a week in which the Trump administration threatened Europe with the seizure of Greenland, the conference was held captive to the Trump administration’s direct challenge to the terms of the trans-Atlantic alliance and the general liberal ideology that informs the annual Davos meeting.

The competition among global political and economic elites to attend U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was a symbol of the history-making at stake. After a week in which the Trump administration threatened Europe with the seizure of Greenland, the conference was held captive to the Trump administration’s direct challenge to the terms of the trans-Atlantic alliance and the general liberal ideology that informs the annual Davos meeting.

What posture did U.S. officials take toward Europe at Davos? What options for resisting U.S. coercion does Europe have? Were corporate elites expressing as much concern at Davos as policymakers?

Those are just a few of the questions that came up in my recent conversation with FP economics columnist Adam Tooze on the podcast we co-host, Ones and Tooze. What follows is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. For the full conversation, look for Ones and Tooze wherever you get your podcasts. And check out Adam’s Substack newsletter.

Cameron Abadi: Trump was joined at Davos by major figures of his administration, all of whom were seemingly trying to channel his impulses into a consistent policy line. That mostly seemed to come across as a kind of generalized contempt expressed toward Europe in public at every opportunity. How would you characterize this posture and the strategy informing it?

Adam Tooze: Condescension, I think, is a key element of it. Hostility and condescension. I mean, we’ve talked about it on the show before. My general view is that the more ideological elements of MAGA are much more preoccupied with Europe than they are with China or Russia or anywhere else in the world. They’re not universal, so they don’t regard those places as at all relevant, really, to the American political struggle, which is their top priority.