Trump's Greenland shakedown: 'Say no and we will remember'

0:01Jon Sopel:This is a Global Player original podcast. We never ask for anything. And we never got anything. We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won't do that. OK, now everyone's saying, oh, good. that's probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland where we already had it. Donald Trump giving rise to a chorus of sighs of relief from European NATO leaders who really did think there was a prospect that NATO member could face NATO members in conflict over Greenland.

0:56Jon Sopel:Donald Trump isn't giving up on it. But what does Europe do now? A long, rambling speech to Davos this morning. Are European leaders any wiser about what he wants and how he's going to get it? Welcome to the News Agents.

1:18The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily, back in the studio at a rather delicious 23 degrees.

1:24Jon Sopel:You complained it was too cold in here. It was a little. It was 21, 22 degrees. You'd been in minus 20 in Minneapolis. Do you want me to wear mittens in here? I want you to wear thermals in here. Keep those peccadillos to yourself. Right. Look, Donald Trump was in Davos, which essentially is the annual meeting of the world's ruling class. Speed dating for the billionaires and politicians and bankers and CEOs who all gather there once a year to pat each other on the back. Except this year, it's very fraught because Europe seems to be on a collision course with the United States. The Western alliance, people are saying, is now over.

2:03Jon Sopel:That was the theme of Mark Carney yesterday. And of course, today, everybody wanted to hear from Donald Trump and what his intentions were towards Greenland. And so, yeah, we're not going to use force, but he made absolutely clear, absolutely clear in almost mafioso style. I'm the Don. I'm the Capo de Tutu Cappi. I am the head honcho. And this is how he set it out. We've never asked for anything else and we could have kept that piece of land and we didn't. So they have a choice. You can say yes and we will be very appreciative or you can say no and we will remember. So that slight threat there, you know, we'll be grateful if you give it to us.

2:54Jon Sopel:We'll remember if you don't. And then Donald Trump gave us a bit of a history lesson during the speech about America's vital role. Absolutely correct that it played in the Second World War. And it did make it sound like it was only America that fought the Nazis, whereas I think history does record that a certain number of British servicemen, Polish, others also fought like hell to liberate Europe from Nazism. But he did say this. And then after the war, which we won, we won it big without us. Right now, you'd all be speaking German and a little Japanese, perhaps. After the war, we gave Greenland back to Denmark.

3:38How stupid were we to do that? But we did it. But we gave it back. But how ungrateful are they now? It's funny, you and I, I think, heard almost completely different speeches. We were sitting opposite each other as he was on the screen. And you hear a sort of mafia gangster boss making his demands. And I hear somebody who was just kind of bored and not really sure where he was going or what he was speaking about. He told us in the first sort of 10, 15 minutes, I guess he was on script then. He was on autocue. He was reading the litany of his achievements of the past year, many of which I think we probably need to fact check quite closely.

4:21Yes, a lot of tendentious claims. Very many. And then I think the Greenland thing in my head is just sort of him getting bored with America. He thinks he's done Venezuela. He thinks he's sorted out the Middle East. And Estee Lauder Senior, as you rightly pointed out, was the last sofa, the last person to speak in his head and say, you need to get this for security. Now, he talked about putting a golden dome in Greenland, dome security as in a missile defense shield. He doesn't need to own Greenland to do that. If there was a real security threat from China or from Russia, although I can't believe that at the moment he thinks of Russia, Putin as an enemy territory.

5:05But if there were any security threat and he wanted to up the military, he can already do that. America has the power to build, to put in whatever they want in Greenland for security reasons. So the fact that he describes it as just a little piece of ice that he wants, I think, tells us something about where he's got to mentally. And I'm sorry to go back to this, but there doesn't seem enough coherence. There doesn't seem to be enough strategic or security policy. Yes, it's worrying for NATO. Yes, it's worrying for European leaders, not least because they all end up being slagged off by him for wearing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing or pandering to him when they think that they've sort of made him feel better.

5:48I think it's uncomfortable for world leaders, but I don't think that anyone is any closer to knowing why he thinks he's got to own this piece. And I would just point out that we are exactly one month and two days on from the day that constitutionally he should have been forced to release the Epstein files. And nobody's been speaking about that for the past month because he's been talking about Venezuela and he's been talking about Greenland and he's been talking about Cuba. and so everyone's distracted and looking elsewhere. This is a man, I think, who's reached sort of exhaustion after the first year, doesn't quite know what he wants and is just asking for impossible things.

6:28Jon Sopel:I think you're right. We do take different views on the speech because I do think this is an absolutely critical moment for the Western alliance and I think people will look back upon this particular week in the lead-up to Davos and the threats and Donald Trump then railing about the fact that he didn't, you know, why should I not take it? And it's because Norwegians didn't give me the Nobel Peace Prize. Why should I talk peace anymore? I mean, there was some mad stuff. And so I think you're absolutely right that we can over intellectualize Trump and we can read too much into the rationale of everything that he does.

7:01Jon Sopel:I think he wants Greenland because he wants Greenland. There probably is a good reason. And he has decided that it's not satisfactory for it to be done under the aegis and protection of NATO, while it's still part of the Kingdom of Denmark. He needs, as he puts it, in kind of very much real estate owners. And he writes title and ownership. That's what he says he needs in Greenland. Because if you're a leaseholder, you never look after the property. You need to own it outright to get it in the way that you want it. And he said the good of the world. But I don't see where this takes us any further in the sense that, well, OK, great.

7:36Jon Sopel:We're not going to war with America over Greenland. Phew, that's a relief. We can all sleep a little easier tonight. But you can tell from that clip, he still absolutely wants to get his hands on Greenland. And you can be sure that he will try to browbeat other European leaders and the Danes into doing this and to handing it over, even though the people who live in Greenland seem to be quite happy to be part of Denmark. They would like more autonomy. me. But one thing they're not voting for is we want to be America. No one is saying that on Greenland. And so you have a bit of a problem there. And I just don't know what it means when he says we will remember this if you don't give it to us.

8:18Jon Sopel:And what happens now? Is there an exit ramp? Is there a landing spot where Europe, NATO says we will do this, we'll do that, we'll do the other, we'll do everything else you want. You can plant some US flags there, but still technically it will be Denmark. I don't know whether Donald Trump is looking for a compromise in all of this, having listened to that speech. You know, the last island that Denmark handed over to America, Wright's title and ownership? Go on. Little St. James. You're joking. I'm not. Epstein's Island. Yes, Epstein's Island. Used to be under Danish control. And that was the last time that a piece of territory was ceded from Denmark to America.

8:59Is there a cautionary lesson there? So I'm just saying, I think the moment you start chasing the Greenland tail, and I understand I'm not a world leader. I'm not part of NATO. I'm not part of the EU. I'm not sitting here saying, what must my strategy be? But it does seem to me very clear that once they cave in on Greenland, he'll go off the idea and there'll be something else. I mean, as we talked about, you know, there are other snowy landmasses, you know, in close proximity to America. And Carney, memorably, is the one person who seems to have learned how to respond to Trump in terms that make absolutely clear where he is.

9:40Carney recognises the world order. Carney recognises what Trump wants to do. And actually, I don't think it starts or ends with Greenland. I don't think he'll even remember Greenland if they all say, yeah, let's do it. And what has been interesting to me is to see how many mandarins, highfalutin sort of former leaders have said, well, absolutely, we do have to sit down strategically. He's correct. And I mean, there's no reason why we shouldn't. And I think we have to entertain this very seriously. If it is, as I say, about military security control, he has carte blanche to do that already, presumably with Denmark's say so.

10:17And the other thing I think I'd say is if we're now questioning whether America is militarily even our ally properly, because, you know, you look at where he is on the Ukraine, Russia war, there is already a war in Europe that he did promise he would sort out on day one. And we can see which side he's taken in that. He is not on Zelensky's side. He's not on Ukraine's side. He's made more effort to get Putin on side than to stop the war. And you have to sort of wonder why we think that he would still be an ally, even militarily, if he's already threatening NATO, if he's pandering to Putin, if he's talking about claiming land with or without military invasion.

11:00I don't understand why the natural thought process for any of our leaders would be to try and make him complete this next land grab. I can't see where it gets us.

11:12Jon Sopel:Mark Carney, you just mentioned that the prime minister of Canada, and I thought he made a speech for the ages. And the best speech that has been made about the new lack of world order that we now find ourselves in as a result of the actions of Donald Trump. in, you know, kind of saying, look, all I'm interested in is the Western Hemisphere. Europe is a place that's going to hell. I don't really care about Europe. My only concern is America first and the landmass around us in the Western Hemisphere. I think it's worth listening to the way Carney framed it. We knew the story of the international rules based order was partially false.

11:50That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim. This fiction was useful. And American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes. So we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works.

12:37Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.

13:15Jon Sopel:The midst of a rupture, not transition. So just break that down for me. When Carney points out that actually we've all been a bit deluded, you know, NATO has been propped up by America. I think we understand that we accept that. And I'd say that the flip side of that was we gave our soldiers, we gave our support when America was attacked and we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is Carney now saying we should withhold what we're doing because it doesn't exist? Because that seems to be the logical conclusion. He is saying that we can no longer rely on the Western alliance, that America will be our protector when America is kind of building a fortress around itself and doesn't much care about.

13:55Jon Sopel:So therefore, and we're into the world of big power politics where the big powerful nations, China, Russia, America, build fortresses around themselves and the rest of the world is poorer for it. And he thinks that the whole world will be poorer for it because free trade has been the kind of engine of growth and wealth for the last 80 years since the Second World War. And so I think that Carney is recognising just the gravity of this moment that we're not transitioning to something. The rupture is taking place before our eyes now and it's manifested in Trump's obsession with Greenland, which I don't think is going to go away because I think Trump has decided I want to beat Europe.

14:38Jon Sopel:and I want it back and I want it now and I want it on my terms. And I just don't see the way out of it because if the Danes and Britain and Germany and France are going to maintain the position that it is up to the Danes and the Greenlanders to decide their own destiny themselves, that is in conflict with Donald Trump, who says, I still want this piece of land. We have to have this piece of land. The only way we can have it is to own it. Where is the compromise in that? Where is the middle ground that you can say, OK, everyone's given a bit. Donald Trump hasn't got all that he's wanted, but he's still able to claim a victory for it.

15:16Jon Sopel:I just don't see where they landed. And then what? Honestly, then what? What happens after Greenland? You know, Greenland is 56 ,000 people. What happens when it's Canada next? Donald Trump, you don't take literally everything he says. He is trolling us a lot of the time and his social media team are experts at the trolling. But when they sit and they've got a map and they're in the Oval Office and it's got the stars and stripes over Canada and stars and stripes over Greenland. Sure, he wants this piece of land and then he might want another piece of land. He is expansionist at the moment. I think the interesting question is, how much do the American people care about this?

15:57Jon Sopel:And what are they going to do about this kind of territorial expansionism when they want to kind of focus on the state of the economy and affordability and all those other things that Donald Trump says is cured? But if you look at his approval ratings, you'd say he is way less popular now than he was when he became president. His ratings are underwater. There is a net negative for him and he's doing badly.

16:49www.lbc.org LBC app. LBC leading Britain's conversation.

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18:01The News Agents. I think if you go back to Carney for a moment and I'm still trying to work out what the consequence is of what he's telling us there. If it is the end of the old world order, then you have to look at the sort of byproducts for want of a better word on that. And when you see Starmer, for example, grant this mega embassy in London to China, is that because he's thinking, well, if we're at a crossroads and I've lost America as an ally or I'm in the midst of losing America as an ally, I don't want to lose China as an ally. So he's doing something that would have, I think, even two years ago, been considered absolutely extraordinary and frankly absurd to allow China, who we always thought of as this hub of espionage right into the centre of our city.

18:54But he's kind of saying, well, yeah, where do I pivot? Which direction am I looking at now? If it's not Russia, it's not Russia. If it's no longer America, is it China? And to the Chagos dilemma that is on Starmer's plate now, I think, again, really interesting because we know that Marco Rubio signed off the idea of the sale of Chagos when it was first mooted, you know, six, eight months ago. Exactly. And I'm pretty sure that Trump has reopened the question of Chagos, as you say, because he's trolling, because he wants to make everyone feel slightly uncomfortable with decisions they've taken. Because once again, he's bored and is niggling and is trying to create ruptures at home.

19:38And sure enough, he's done it because Kemi Beidnock and Nigel Farage are saying, re-look at Chagos, which, you know, actually is playing right into this expansionist president's hands. And Stalin is saying we will not move. So he is doubling down on Chagos, whether or not it's the right thing to do. He feels he can't now give in. And so as ever with Trump, what it's really about, I think, is not what he gains, but the sort of mess of division he leaves in his wake. That's actually what he wants to achieve, probably with the Davos speech and probably in NATO and in Europe itself.

20:12Jon Sopel:I think that question that you just raised, if Carney is right, what are the byproducts of this, is such an interesting question. Just on the Chagos Islands, I'll give you a theory that's doing the rounds. Why did Trump suddenly raise the Chagos Islands? Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, did an interview with the BBC. He also did an interview with GB News, spoke to Farage. Farage banged on about the Chagos Islands and how can you possibly support this? I don't understand why America has not been more forthright in saying this is a bad idea. It's a good question. I share your concern in general.

20:51It's obviously a very important location for us and for the UK. We recognise that. I don't know that the president has spoken directly to the issue or is forcefully enough to your point. But I would I would assume he shares the same concern as you and I do about that.

21:06Jon Sopel:Mike Johnson does the interview, then speaks to Donald Trump about the alarm that there is. And, you know, the fact that Britain has given back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and bang Trump on Truth Social in the small hours of the morning flying back from Florida posts. Not just Farage, but Kemi Baden-Ock as well. So, I mean, you know, you've got at least two leaders in the UK who are at odds with where the government position is. And Trump loves to walk down the middle of that. So going back to your question of the byproducts, is the EU-US trade deal that was under advanced negotiation now going to fall apart?

21:43Jon Sopel:Because the European Parliament are saying, screw this. We're not going to be pushed around by America in this way. We've got weapons as well. We do have a stick. Because just to explain, the EU trade deal would have taken a 15 percent tariff from America without imposing any on their exports to America. And now they're basically in the process of ripping it up and saying, well, sod that. We might as well impose our own tariffs. And by the way, could we all boycott McDonald's? Exactly. And so, you know, and you've got American exporters who are desperate to be able to sell their goods, to be able to sell their bourbon, to be able to sell their Harley Davidson motorcycles, to be able to sell all manner of different products into the European market.

22:26Jon Sopel:And so Europe is saying, well, if this is the new world order, the by-product of it is, if protectionism is the name of the game, yeah, we will do that as well. And then you've got the other nuclear weapon. I hate to talk about nuclear weapons metaphorically at a time like this, when we're all so fearful of what the hell is going to happen next. But the other nuclear weapon is the money. So he does it twice. Is the money that is held in bonds by pension funds, by states, by Canada, by the European Union, by Britain. If you start selling US bonds and the markets really do start to tremble in the US, that's the one time we've seen Donald Trump surrender over his tariffs policy.

23:07Jon Sopel:The same could happen again. so what's the byproducts are is that instead of everyone meekly saying okay he's a bit irascible and he's a bit unpredictable but ultimately he's our friend and we'll just stick with him and we'll just tolerate the fact that we're trolled and he takes the piss out of us for wearing sunglasses when we've got an eye infection whatever it happens to be so when i called up emmanuel macron i watched him yesterday with those beautiful sunglasses what the hell happened we will live with that you're talking about macron's aviators macron's aviators and probably he hated it because joe biden used to wear aviators but instead of which europe is now saying no no enough is enough and there are splits within europe over the extent to which america should be challenged or you roll over at the moment the british government is saying you're completely wrong over greenland but we're not threatening anything on tariffs.

24:02Jon Sopel:We don't want to get into a pissing contest with you. European Union taking a much more bolshie view. Macron, the Belgians, others saying, no, we've got to hit back hard. Yeah, I don't think we have seen Europe's economic weaponry in full yet. And I think if it was unified, it could be quite a strike. And Macron... If he's doing a lot of lifting there. Well, all I'm saying is that going back to my previous point, which is that Trump loves nothing more than to divide, right? That's how he gets his power. You know, he makes people laugh at the one who's on the outside, you know, today it's Macron, and he makes Starmer feel like he's a special friend with a special relationship.

24:43We've now seen that none of that means anything, really doesn't. Your friends with Trump today, you had the lovely state visit with the king last week, and tomorrow you've got the same tariffs on your aluminium and your steel and maybe everything else. So actually, don't bank on it. And I think that's really the lesson. It is the Carney lesson. Don't bank on this man. Do not take anything that he says at face value, whether it's taking Greenland or whether it's a good trade deal, because it probably won't exist next week. So really, Europe should be looking to work out where its own fortress lies.

25:15I mean, you know, what I was told over the last 24 hours was that Macron has got an eye to a sort of European president role, post Ursula von der Leyen. So he is going guns blazing out there, aviators or not, to sort of say this is what we should do. But I think if he can bring more European countries and if that twins with Carney and if that then twins with, you know, Ukraine in whatever shape or form Ukraine emerges from this whole mess in, you've actually got a body that is willing to take on, not America, but Trump's America for now. And that starts to feel like a much more positive place than just rolling over, sort of sliding into this consensual sort of conformity of desperate people-pleasing that we've been doing for so long.