GREENLAND MARKS THE RETURN OF GREAT POWER ENTITLEMENT

DONALD Trump’s recent promise not to use force in trying to wrest Greenland offered Western capitals a brief, uneasy relief.

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But beneath the rhetoric lies a president intent on asserting dominance over the Arctic through coercion, signalling that allies can be compelled without direct confrontation. Trump’s shelving of the threatened 25 percent tariffs on eight European countries was less a retreat than a recalibration. After talks with Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Davos, he floated a loose “framework” on Greenland and Arctic security, and suspended the tariffs due from February 1. The episode suggested neither victory nor defeat, but leverage tested and temporarily set aside—not surrendered.