Donald Trump both settled nerves but left the Alpine air in Davos heavy with threat. Promising he would not use force to annex Greenland, he went on to warn that if he didn’t get hold of the vast island of ice, “we will remember”.
Did this amount to “give me Greenland or I’ll back Russia in Ukraine completely”?
He didn’t say it out loud, but in a long, rambling speech peppered with statistics snatched from his imaginarium, Trump consciously avoided revealing what the “or else” part of his threat actually meant.
For a change, much of the importance of his address at Davos lay with what he did not say rather than in his now familiar public stream of consciousness.
He may have been surprised by the vigour and depth of European and Canadian horror at his pledge to use tariffs against the eight nations that backed Greenland against threats of annexation. He didn’t mention the 10 per cent tariffs, or the 15 per cent that would follow, if Greenland wasn’t handed over by Denmark to the US.
“We want a piece of ice for world protection and they won’t give it,” he said. “We’ve never asked for anything else… so they have a choice: you can say yes and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no – and we will remember.”
Several times, he lost his way geographically and referred to Greenland as Iceland. But these were among the few moments when listeners around the world, and global leaders in the audience, would have been able to infer what he meant to say.
He was clear, too, on saying that both Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin would be “stupid” if they did not sign up to a peace deal that, so far, neither side has agreed is acceptable. For Russia, it does not allow for enough of a land grab in Ukraine.
For Ukraine’s allies, all proposed deals so far leave Russia unpunished, reward the Kremlin with new lands and leave the battle space shaped for renewed Russian invasion.
It is Trump’s heavy pro-Russian bias which will cause consternation when he says he won’t forget those who stood against his annexation plans.
Trump belittled and mocked Nato repeatedly, claiming – wrongly – that the US had paid 100 per cent of its bills but got nothing in return.
The only country to have invoked Chapter 5 of Nato’s founding charter, which demands support from all allies in the event of attack has been the US after 9/11.
As a proportion of the population, Denmark (of which Greenland is a part) lost more troops fighting inside Nato for America in Afghanistan than any other.
Only Russia’s president is as equally bitter towards Nato – an organisation set up to largely defend the West against a Soviet threat from Moscow’s nuclear weapons and imperial expansion.
So the “we will remember” phrase will be mulled with trepidation across Europe, in the UK and in Canada.
Europe, meanwhile, was again singled out by Trump as a failing region beset by weakness and, implicitly, not worth defending by America.
“The places where you come from can do much better by following what we’re doing, because certain places in Europe are not even recognisable anymore. They’re not recognisable and we can argue about it, but there’s no argument.
“Friends come back from different places (I don't want to insult anybody) and say ‘I don’t recognise it’ and that’s not in a positive way – that’s in a very negative way. And I love Europe and I want to see Europe go good, but it’s not heading in the right direction in recent decades.”
He went on to renew support for the great replacement conspiracy theory that claims “non-Europeans” are being overwhelmed by foreigners in their home countries.
“Many other western governments very foolishly followed turning their backs on everything that makes nations rich and powerful and strong,” he said. “The result was record budget and trade deficits and a growing sovereign deficit driven by the largest wave of mass migration in human history.
“We've never seen anything like it quite frankly. Many parts of our world are being destroyed before our very eyes and the leaders don’t even understand what’s happening and the ones that do understand aren’t doing anything about it.”
Trump championed his abduction of Venezuela’s authoritarian president and scorned countries that have granted independence to nations they colonised in long-faded empires.
Turning to Greenland, he said: “It’s the United States alone that can protect this giant mass of land, this giant piece of ice, develop it and improve it and make it so that it’s good for Europe and safe for Europe and good for us.
“And that’s the reason I’m seeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States, just as we have acquired many other territories throughout our history as many of the European nations had acquired … If you look, some had great vast wealth, great vast lands all over the world. They went and reversed it.”
He has said he wants to annex Canada, invade Cuba, may attack Colombia, wants Greenland and has taken control of Venezuela’s economy. His long-standing support for Russia’s attacks on Ukraine has been signalled by cutting military aid to Kyiv and saying that Russia has earned a chunk of territory by force of arms.
Colonialism and a world in which might trumps law or ethics remains the vision that Trump presented in Davos. Immediate fears over Greenland may have settled – but they are far from resolved.
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