It has been said that “After Venezuela, the administration of US President Donald Trump thought they could walk on water. Their attitude was let’s take this thing, let’s take that country.”
Trump did want to “take” Greenland, a self-governing country that for over 300 years has been a part of Denmark, a member of the European Union.
But Europe stood up, having suffered “a year of tariffs, threats and insults” from the Trump administration.
Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Finland started sending military personnel to Greenland in solidarity with Denmark, and to demonstrate Europe’s commitment to defending its sovereignty. Denmark itself deployed armoured infantry, specialist forces and F-35 jets.
Indeed, we now know that, backed by France and Germany, Denmark was ready to blow up Greenland’s runways if America invaded. Danish soldiers were given enough explosives along with blood supplies in case of combat.
Faced by this astounding European defiance, Trump backed away. The next day, the editorial board of the Financial Times, said, “The world feels different. There is the sense that something fundamental has changed.”
The change was Europe’s awakening. Which was further demonstrated when the US and Israel declared war on Iran.
Trump called on European Nato allies to send battleships to escort merchant vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran was choking the flow of oil, gas and fertilisers, threatening the global economy and international food production. Europe’s leaders refused.
They said they were never consulted, were not party to the conflict and therefore would not take part. Trump called them disloyal cowards and “paper tigers” and declared “the United States does not need anyone’s help.”
But the war did not go Trump’s way and his threats to annihilate Iran became increasingly extreme.
On Easter Sunday morning, this is what this President of the United States, using expletives, posted as he threatened to blow apart Iranian infrastructure: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it! Open the F…in Strait, you bunch of crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH!”.
And then on Tuesday, Trump declared, “A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
But 88 minutes before “his own apocalyptic deadline, Trump backed down,” said one report.
A tenuous two-week ceasefire was agreed upon. But subsequent high-level talks produced nothing and the situation remains an unresolved stalemate that could flare up again, while suffocating the flow of oil, gas and fertilisers to the world.
“After only seven weeks, food shortages and even famine are now looking more likely for millions across vulnerable countries in Africa and Asia,” reports the Financial Times.
Is this the outcome of a war that caused loss of life on both sides; massive destruction in Iran and the wider Middle East; a “permanently scarred” global economy, says IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva; and a world order rendered uncertain and dangerously fragile?
After all the “bombing and bombast,” the Islamic Republic remains in place with its nuclear stockpile and ballistic missile programme and still in command of the Strait of Hormuz with its arsenal of drones to endanger shipping. America has effectively lost the war, says Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman.
Portuguese political scientist Bruno Maçães also sees defeat and adds: “Belief in an all-powerful America that can solve anything is disappearing.”
Will we now see waning American power and credibility?
Political scientist Charles A Kupchan, director at the Council on Foreign Relations, says, “The war and ceasefire deal have diminished American influence and will affect how US allies view its reliability. There is the sense that the US has become unpredictable and undependable.”
Francis Fukuyama, of Stanford University, concurs.
“The United States has never been more distrusted by both friends and rivals,” he says.
Governance concerns have also surfaced.
Stephen Wertheim, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, says the war demonstrated “the danger of American misgovernance and poor judgement. There is accelerating worry about America’s declining quality of governance and what countries can expect from the United States.”
Previously, Washington’s main justification for the many American bases around the world, and especially in the Middle East, was that America’s global presence was necessary for the stability of global trade and the preservation of the world order.
But the war has shown the United States acting “as a force of disorder and disruption,” asserts Anatol Lieven, of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
“By engaging in a war of choice in a critical region for global trade and utterly ignoring the probable consequences for the economies of its closest allies, the Trump administration has destroyed the legitimacy of American power.”
Of profound significance will be future US relations with Europe.
Are transatlantic ties of 77 years irretrievably broken?
Or, will what America previously meant to its allies survive the present administration?
It is said Europeans draw “a distinction between faith in America and faith in Mr Trump”.
The former remains for now, fragile and fading. When Trump is gone, will faith in America recover?
