Trump, Putin and the revival of an old imperialist dream

The upheavals over Greenland, Venezuela and Ukraine are symptoms of efforts to restore spheres of influence.

- Jonathan Eyal Global Affairs Correspondent

People protesting against US President Donald Trump's threat to take over Greenland, in its capital of Nuuk on Jan 17. The Greenland question is part of a bigger concern: Mr Trump's evident determination to create an exclusive sphere of US influence covering the entire Western Hemisphere. PHOTO: JULIETTE PAVY/NYTIMES

(JULIETTE PAVY/NYTIMES)

For European leaders and business tycoons attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, the pressing question is the future of Greenland, the Arctic island which is part of Denmark but which US President Donald Trump now covets.

"A Spirit of Dialogue" is the strapline the Davos gathering uses to describe its purpose. And Europeans evidently hope that this is what they will get when they meet the US President this week in Switzerland. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, for instance, intends to use the Davos meeting to persuade Mr Trump that it's not worth unleashing a new trade war between Europe and the US over who possesses Greenland, and that any seizure of the island by American forces would shatter the military, political and economic trans-Atlantic alliance which has been a key pillar of global order for more than 80 years.

Yet in many respects, the Greenland question is part of a bigger concern. For an even darker spectre now haunts the community of Western nations: Mr Trump's evident determination to create an exclusive sphere of US influence covering the entire Western Hemisphere from the high north to the bottom tip of South America, coupled with his indifference to Russia's evident determination to create its own sphere of influence in Europe.