Don't lose yourself in Trump's trolling

Why it’s important to keep your head.

If you can keep your head while all around are losing theirs…

So wrote Kipling in If, and if the reaction to Donald Trump’s foreign affairs press conference was anything to go by, most of us aren’t ready to “be a man, my son.”

Troll-in-chief

Trump was doing what he does best, which is trolling. Seeing whether he can get away with taking over Greenland or incorporating Canada into the United Atates. He did this because he enjoys it. He gets off on appearing to have arbitrary power, and watching the little people run around trying to placate him. How he must have loved Canada’s Conservative opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, insisting on X that “Canada will never be the 51st state” and that he will “fight for Canada” if he wins the election this year. Journalists at the press conference played into his hands, by asking if he would rule out the use of force to take over Greenland. Of course he didn’t rule it out.

Trump quite obviously doesn’t care about the western alliance, or America’s national interests, but is this really the end of the international order, as some of the more excitable commentators have been saying?

He’s been in the public eye long enough to know a few things about him. First, he craves attention, and he’ll say anything to get it. Second, he likes to shoot his mouth off, but doesn’t see himself as anyway committed to anything he says. Third, he always gives himself an out. You know what he’s getting at, but if you read his words carefully, you’ll find some sort of an excuse: “people have been saying…”, “maybe…”. The man hates confrontation, because there’s always a chance he’ll come across a loser. Give him a face saving way to back down, Ideally by making him look like a dealmaker, and he often will.

Poilievre understood this, which is why he drew attention to Canada’s energy supplies to the united states delivered at “low prices”. He didn’t have to add “for now”.

He’s not a King: just head of one branch of one level of government

Trump won the election, but he won narrowly, with less than 50% of the popular vote, the smallest ever congressional majority, and a slim margin in the Senate. The US has fifty states, with their own governments and the separation of powers. Even in foreign policy, he’s constrained by legislation: most obviously the War Powers Act, and it’s Congress that has to vote money, increase the debt ceiling.

Opponents of his policy, foreign and domestic, have plenty to work with to slow things down, and buy some time to defuse this particular crisis.

Remember that America’s government has branches and is a federal union of states. This needs to guide both strategy and communications.

Strategy: which means building up allies in Congress including within the Republican Party, particularly in districts with small majorities or which depend on European investment; or among governors and in the private sector.

Communications: Trump is not “The United States”. He is, in EU terms, one of “three co-legislators” and head of the executive branch. Millions of proud Americans oppose him and everything he stands for. Millions more want him to concentrate on growing the economy, not picking fights with Europe. So talk about our strong relationship with the US, while taking issue with the “executive branch” of the “federal government”.

America’s not the world

Greenland may be largely empty - but it’s part of Denmark, an EU member state. The French foreign minister has promised that the EU would defend its borders. One doesn’t need to imagine the Foreign Legion freezing in the snows near Nuuk, but one should note that picking a fight with the world’s second-largest economic bloc would be very expensive for the United States.

Remember: the US struggles to get Turkey to do what it wants. What chance does it have for the whole EU?

Trump promised the voters prosperity, not spurious national aggrandisement.

The need is for European leaders to show a united front and communicate that madness would not be tolerated, and a world were European companies continue to invest in the US, and buy US weapons, would be vastly preferable to one of confrontation.

A face-saving deal, involving some US rare earth mine and continued oil sales from Canada can probably be cooked up.

But in the meantime, better start upping that defence spending. 5% was what he wanted. That could pay for a big foreign legion indeed.

Eye on the ball

Then, keep focused on what really makes him get up in the morning, which, apart from looking strong on TV, is corruption and theft. Time spent talking about invading Greenland is time not spent scrutinising Pete Hesgseth’s nomination to be Defense Secretary, or Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.

Instead European countries need to build up their allies on the Hill and in American industry, reduce their dependency on parts of American policy that are in Trump’s arbitrary power, and above all stick together to impose costs on the Trump executive branch.