The Duran Podcast - EU no cards to play. Trump hardens Greenland position heading to Davos

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

EU no cards to play. Trump hardens Greenland position heading to Davos

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation around Greenland. And we also have the WEF taking place this week from the 19th until the 23rd. Trump is going to be there, as will many of the European globalist elite. And they were probably thinking heading into the WEF. I believe Zelensky is also going to be there, by the way. I believe they were thinking that they will be chasing Trump for Project Ukraine, for security guarantees, for money, for weapons. But things have changed.

And at least for the European globalist elite, I imagine that they're going to be chasing Trump around so that they can figure out what is going to happen with Greenland. Now, Trump has posted some incredible statements on truth social. There's also a letter to ambassadors. My understanding is that this was a letter to ambassadors in the United States, European ambassadors in the United States, and the letter was also meant to be delivered to the Prime Minister of Norway as well.

and PBS got a hold of this letter. They published it, which basically links the Nobel Peace Prize to Greenland. You can get into that as well. I'm sure the Trump administration knew that this letter was going to be leaked, obviously. They knew it was going to be leaked. But the way I'm looking at this is even if the Europeans speak with Trump, they are going to speak with Trump at Davos, at the W. But even that is not going to change Trump's mind, at least with Greenland, taking Greenland,

taking Greenland, purchasing Greenland, whatever you want to call it. Because his rhetoric is such that if he were to flip-flop on Greenland, I mean, it would make him look very weak, very silly, wouldn't it? I mean, I think he's gone down a path now that he's going to have. to make a move on Greenland. I mean, there's no real, real way he's going to change position, no matter how much Ursula or Stubb or Stamer or Macron speak with him. That's my hunch. He says he's ready to negotiate with Denmark and with Europe, but I believe Trump is saying, I'm ready to negotiate for the U.S. to take Greenland. We could do it the easy way or the hard way.

That's what he means by negotiate, not negotiate in terms of, well, we can decide how we want to hand Greenland, NATO can manage it. The U.S. can sign contracts for mineral deals or something like that. No, I think he's serious. He's saying, I'm ready to negotiate, but the U.S. is going to get Greenland, but we can negotiate how the U.S. is going to get greenland. Anyway, those are my thoughts about what's happening as we enter the week. What do you think? You're absolutely correct. Now, there's a number of things I want to say. All of these messages, a lot of the things that have been passing between Trump and the Europeans, messages that he's been sending letters that he's been writing. What they basically convey to me is that ultimately

a lot of this, a lot of the way in which this whole thing has been handled is driven by the fact that over the last 10 years, but perhaps even more over the last year, Trump has developed a very, very serious, dislike. Losing, I think, is perhaps not too strong a word for the leaders of Europe. He really doesn't like these people. He doesn't respect them. He considers them annoying and irritating. He senses that they've tried to stop him in every conceivable way. And you could sense this. He also senses their weakness. I mean, the business with Osceola von der Leyen and the tariffs, remember when she agreed to 15% tariffs in return of the zero tariffs on American group. In Scotland, you mean?

In Scotland, the Scotland meeting. You could already see it there. And all of these European leaders who thought they'd developed a relationship with, people like Kyrsama, for example, and Emmanuel Macron. Well, they were projecting wishful thinking into their dealings with Trump. He just doesn't like them. So, I mean, I think this is one of the things that has added a degree of color to this whole episode. I mean, it explains why things become as acrimonious as they have done. And I think undoubtedly, we are going to get to Davos.

turning up and all of these people, Stahommer, Macron, Mouts and Ursula and Kaya, Carlos, and Maloney, and they're all going to be chasing around after him. And it's going to be, again, another ridiculous episode, a little bit like the one in the Oval Office, if you remember, back in August when they all turned up and they looked like angry and naughty schoolchildren before the head teacher. Anyway, it's going to be something like that. But with every iteration of this, I think Trump's loathing and contempt for these people, and he's sensed that ultimately what they are about is trying to screw over the United States and him, I think that is simply going to intensify.

And I don't know whether the Europeans understand this. I mean, they're massively angry with him now, but I think that there is this element here. And this letter, by the way, about the Nobel Prize, Norway and all of that, absolutely it was intended to be leaked. If you send a letter like that to the ambassadors and say you're going to convey that on to the government of Norway. Well, if you have a letter like that circulated to so many people, everybody knows that in Washington, a letter of that kind is going to be leaked again. And again, the reason that was done was once again to demonstrate Trump's real feelings of dislike and anger towards these people. And by the way, the Nobel Prize affair is getting more and more preposterous all the time.

As we know, the Norwegians gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Machado. Machado has now handed it over to Trump. The Norwegians are furious about it. Well, what did they expect? I mean, giving it to someone like Machado. I mean, it was an absurd thing to do in itself, controversial and criticized by the Alfred Nobel Foundation. They said this is a complete misapplication of the Nobel Peace Prize.

But as I said, she gives it to Trump. And Trump takes it, but gives back nothing in return. I think that he's very angry about that for all kinds of reasons. I mean, I think they didn't handle that situation at all well either. They could have simply said, look, Mr. President, you know, we're not able to give you the Nobel Prize, but this reason, that reason, the other reason. Of course, what drives him is that they gave it to Barack Obama without any real reason to give it to Barack Obama. But anyway, you know, let's not get sidetracked into too much of a discussion

about the Nobel Prize. No, but it's true. Your point is valid. Absolutely. With Obama. He did nothing and he got it. Absolutely. Absolutely nothing. But, you know, the point I'm simply saying is the whole episode has soured relations between Trump personally and the Europeans even further. and I don't think they were ever that good in the first place. That's what I wanted to say about this. Now, the thing to say about Greenland, your point that Trump wants Greenland is absolutely right. He doesn't want an agreement to station more American troops in Greenland.

He's already got the right to do that. He does not want extraction deals, mineral rights, extraction deals over Greenland. He doesn't want long-term referendums, you know, about giving the people of Greenland choices between joining the United States and independence. He doesn't want any of those things. He wants Greenland and he wants it now. And by the way, can I just, again, make the point?

Because if we don't make it, no one will. Last year, when the question of Greenland first came up, we were just about the only people who said that Trump on this needed to be taken seriously. Yes. We did. We did. We absolutely said it. The Europeans didn't believe it. Again, they didn't address the question of Greenland properly. They spent the entire last year, the whole of last year, trying to find ways of getting Trump on side with Project Ukraine. They gave him everything, you know, they appeased him. They went along with him. They praised him. We had Mark Rutter referring to him daddy and we see how Kiril Dimitriyev is now mocking the Europeans because of all of that.

I mean, the Russians are gloating over this whole business and unsurprisingly. But the point was the Europeans didn't grasp what we grasped immediately. You know, we have the programs there which confirm this. That he was absolutely serious about Greenland. And if you understand this hemispheric policy that he and Colby, Elbridge Colby, appear to have about creating a sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere, or perhaps even not a sphere of influence, some are saying a secure base area with which to challenge China in the Asia Pacific.

I do think it makes a huge amount of difference, which it is, by the way. The point is Greenland rounds it out. And he's talking about air defenses and protection of the United States from hemispheric, from hypersonic weapons and golden domes and all of that. And they need Greenland for that. Well, there is a kind of strategic rationale for it as well. Again, I'm not saying it's a convincing one. I'm not saying I agree with it.

I'm not saying that ego and vanity and the desire to expand and in large, the United States by achieving a, you know, the biggest acquisition of territory that the United States will have achieved since the Louisiana purchase doesn't play a role as well with Trump. Of course it does. But again, to say that there has been no strategic rationale behind this at all, it would be wrong. And notice again that within the United States, yes, there's a great deal of criticism. There's some people in Congress who are very unhappy.

There's been some pushback in the media. But when you look at the enormity of what is happening, what Trump is proposing to do, nowhere near as much as I personally would have expected. We've not had, for example, a joint statement by both houses of Congress, all of the senators, all of the members of the House, or at least the... vast majority of them coming together and say this is totally unacceptable, there is no conceivable way that the United States should ever do this sort of thing. And that again tells you that there is a kind of strategic rationale and that there are reasons for this move, which some people,

quite a lot of people, maybe not the majority of people, maybe not the majority of people within the deep state or the political class in the United States. But there are some people, enough people, who support this thing to make it work, to make it a viable strategy for Trump to follow. I mean, you see Scott Besson is talking about it. You see others talking about it. Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson.

I mean, this has a critical mass of support. within the American leadership. And as I said, I don't think people, anybody in Europe who expects or believes or thinks that opposition in the United States is going to grow and is going to stop this is right. And I'm going to say something else. This feeling of disrespect, dislike,

for the European leadership, contempt for the European leadership. is not just confined to Donald Trump in America. I think there's a lot of people, especially on the Republican side, who do generally, sincerely believe that the Europeans have been screwing over the United States for a very, very long time now, that they've been living off U.S. power, that the United States has been protecting Europe, it's been doing all sorts of things in Europe, and that the Europeans have been on this gravy train, as they see it, for a very long time now, and it's time

that the gravy train stopped. And I think if there's going to be a major fight between the Europeans and the Europeans are going to try and push back against Trump now, I think there is a real possibility that this will solidify support for. this move over Greenland in America. So those are my initial thoughts. The polling suggests that when it comes to Greenland, there's a kind of support. Let's call it a kind of support for what Trump is doing with Greenland,

as long as there's no military intervention. I think that's the factor that separates support. from don't do this. If there's some sort of military intervention, I've seen the polling which suggests that most of America, most of the American citizens are absolutely against a military intervention with regards to Greenland. But if Trump can pull off a purchase of Greenland or a trade or whatever with Greenland, I think he's got the support for the most part. Of course, the people of Greenland don't want this. That's obvious. My understanding. of the people of Greenland. And no one talks about the people of Greenland, but we've been

talking about the people of Greenland, the citizens of Greenland, my understanding is that they would prefer a referendum and they would prefer to become their own country, their own entity. That's my understanding of the sentiment of where the people of Greenland are. They've expressed their opinion. They've voiced their opinion that they do not want to be part of the United States. Of course, that can change. We don't know. It depends on not. on what deal, what possible deal could be worked out. But that's where we are. As far as the Europeans go, all they did was talk about Ukraine over the past year.

Trump first mentioned Greenland in 2019, actually. And no one in Europe took notice. That falls on Ursula. She was commissioner in 2019, wasn't she? I believe she was. That falls on her. She's the one sitting in the chair. She's the CEO.

She's the big boss. she should have said, wait a minute, 2019, wait a minute, we need to assemble a team, an action group, something to address this. The president of the United States, he's on his way out, but still, he's mentioned Greenland. We need to do something about this. Biden's coming in, so maybe we could figure out a way to prevent something from happening with Greenland. She did nothing.

Project Ukraine starts up. all the European Union does. All they do is talk about Ukraine. That's it. Yes. They didn't address Greenland. They don't address inflation. They don't address the deindustrialization of Germany.

They don't address Nord Stream. They don't address anything. All they do day in, day out, 24 hours a day is focus on Project Ukraine, a country that's not even in the European Union. That's not even an EU member. That's all they have been doing. for the past four years, and that's all they've done over the past year. And even the other day, what was Kayakalus' response to Trump and Greenland?

What did she post on next? Russia and China are going to be happy about this. Why are you doing this, Trump? Why are you doing this? All you're going to do is make Putin and Xi happy. That was her answer to all of this. You said in your video update the other day that if Denmark had serious leadership, instead of Meda Frederickson, who has been a big supporter of Zelensky, from what I understand, the Fredericksin family is very good friends with the Zelensky family. They're even doing a documentary on the guy. Well, instead of doing documentaries on Zelensky, maybe you should have looked at the situation in and around Greenland from when Trump entered office and taken some actions like what you suggested in your video update. Maybe you could have said, you know what? Let me cut this off right now and get a referendum in Greenland.

That would have been a checkmate move. Let me give the people of Greenland a referendum. Whatever they choose, if they choose Denmark, Denmark. If they choose to go on their own, go on their own. If they choose to remain as is, whatever, whatever they choose. You have that referendum and then the United States is stuck. Trump is stuck. What's it going to do?

The people of Greenland voted. That would have been extremely powerful for her to take to the international community. She did nothing. No. What did she do? Go to Kiev. Yes. Invite Zelensky to Denmark so we can hang out.

Yes. Yes. I don't know. Do you want to say anything? No, I get to say a lot of other stuff that I want to say as well. But I mean, I just want to mention this in your video and it clicked with me. She did nothing. She did nothing.

Absolutely. Nothing. And you know what else, Alexander? Just one final point. If Trump succeeds, she's going to go down in history as the prime minister who lost Greenland. Correct. Absolutely. Yes.

So, I mean, she's invested everything in Ukraine. Europe has had only one policy over the last 10 years. I mean, going all the way back to 2014, but especially obviously over the last four years, that policy is Project Ukraine, which basically is undeclared war of a kind against Russia. It has been the single-minded sole policy around which everything else has been shaped. Domestic policy, economic policy, such as there is one. Economic policy now is it basically within the European Union an extension of sanctions policy. I mean, that's all it is.

I mean, sanctions now drive economic policy in all the member states. Why is Germany deindustrializing? Because the European Union wants sanctions against Russia. Why is the chaos in international trade? Because the European Union wants sanctions against Russia. Why are the problems with the financial markets? Because the European Union wants sanctions against Russia. Everything has, why are relations with all sorts of other countries around the world with the Middle Eastern countries, with the African countries, with China, with India, why are they fraught and damaged and not as smooth as successful as they should be? Because we focus entirely on Russia. When European diplomats, when European foreign ministers go to Beijing and Delhi, what do they talk about? They talk about Ukraine. They talk about

supporting, not undercutting our sanctions against Russia. This is an obsession. And as we've discussed in many places, we've spoken about Moby Dick and be Hunt for the White Whale. Obsessions are always in the end, utterly self-defeating, self-destroying. They devour the people who hold them. I think we both of us seen this in our lives, you know, with individuals, and it has taken the whole of Europe, the whole continent of Europe, all the European governments, the entire political class in Europe, it holds them in its grip. So the result is, Friedrichson did absolutely nothing to support, protect Denmark's position or Greenland's or the people of Greenland's position in advance of this.

She didn't look as a leader needs to do. She didn't not look forward. Say to herself, look, this issue of Greenland has now been brought up. Donald Trump, who's a major political candor, he's been president of the United States. There's a good chance that he might become president again. His ideas anyway have a habit of circulating within the American political system. and they might be picked up by other people there. She did not look forward, and she made no preparations, none, none whatsoever in advance of this.

So what do they do instead? Trump comes along. He talks about Greenland. They all pretend that all of the European leaders pretend that they're going to support Denmark. I don't think they really are going to support Denmark. So what do they do? They rush a military force to Greenland, 5, 10, 20, 25, 50, I don't know, 100 people altogether. This force that's been sent to Greenland, nobody's able to say what is really there for.

Is it to deter the Russians, who have no interest in Greenland? Is it to deter the Americans? Is it supposed to impress Trump? It was all but certain that Trump would be angered by it. He clearly not been consulted. So, of course, he was angered by it. And we said as much. We said as much.

We said as much. And Germany sent 15 people in, and then the next day they removed 15 people. Exactly. And now they're coming out with the excuse that, oh, no, these forces were not aimed at the United States. We're not about the United States of Trump. These forces were there to have. an exercise, a military exercise against Russia. Give me a break. Oh, exactly. Give me a break. That's ridiculous. Exactly. So you're absolutely right.

Most people in America would be happy for the United States to acquire Greenland. At least this seems to be the polling. They don't want military action. Well, Trump isn't talking at the planet about military action. If you look at these two social posts, he's talking at the moment about buying Greenland. But he's making that demands in ways that say, I will not take no for an answer. And the key thing to understand is that he has all the cards. He has military cards. He's got economic cards. And that's perhaps what we need to talk about now. Energy cards. Energy cards. So the argument with the energy cards, which Trump has the energy cards and the reason he has the energy cards, once again is because of the sanctions and the EU and Nord Stream. We don't need to revisit all of that, but the United States has all the cards there.

The only argument that I've heard against Trump using those cards in some sort of a trade war, let's say, is that that may be the stoppage of LNG to Europe will hurt U.S. corporations. But I think Trump, if he needs to pull the trigger on that, he will pull the trigger because the EU is now saying, that they're going to activate the ACI, the anti-coercion instrument, which means that they ban U.S. businesses from Europe, pretty much. That's what it means. And the 93 billion retaliatory tariffs, basically what was agreed on in Scotland and all of that is it doesn't hold anymore.

And they have a package of 93 billion euros or dollars in retaliation for the Trump tariffs. Anyway, that's what the EU has said they will do if Trump goes down this path. It is utterly phony. It is utterly phony. All of these things that they're saying about Trump, the United States, are totally phony. There's a number of things to say. But let's put aside just for a moment, energy, trade and all of that. The point is the Europeans are never going to see through this, through with all of this.

There is no way that the Baltic states, Finland, sweet. Sweden, Germany are going to quarrel long term with the United States now, because they now have the Russians at their door. They are still in this prolonged duel with the Russians. They know they're absolutely nowhere without the United States. They know it. Let us say that a decision was made to close down the European, the American, the American basis in Europe. As night follows day, I don't believe that will ever happen, by the way,

but as night follows day, if that happened, then within weeks, months, probably, we would see individual European countries, Baltic states, Poland, probably. They would cut deals by themselves with the Americans to reopen bases in their own countries. I mean, it is inevitable because given how bad the relationship with Russia is, and given the fact that the European leaders still are not prepared to make the fundamental, necessary moves to patch up the relations with Russia, and given that the Russians wouldn't trust them anyway, even if they tried to, they have absolutely no option but to go back to the Americans again and to say, we need your protection. Now, on all of the other economic issues,

The key thing to understand is that, again, directly because of Project Ukraine, all of the sanctions, all of the severance of economic ties with Russia, the actions that the Europeans, by the way, have also been taking about China, which has been the topic of a major editorial in Global Times. If the Europeans get into an economic war with the United States, yes, it might cause a few problems for some American corporations. Some of the gas production companies that operate on very tight margins, they might have some difficulties. It's not an existential problem for the United States. no problem there. There are a little bit of money from the US budget.

The Federal Reserve going to do a bit more QE couldn't solve. For Europe, it is an absolutely existential matter. Absolutely existential. Firstly, what if the United States stops LNG deliveries to Europe at this time? Which, by the way, it absolutely can do. And Donald Trump is the sort of person that I don't think he would have any hesitation but to do it. What happens then?

Pipeline gas from Russia? It's gone. Go back to Moscow, ask for the Russians to turn the pipelines back on again. Why would they? Why would they? I mean, the kind of bargain that the Russians would drive at this time is a bargain which would utterly humiliate the Europeans to a degree that is almost beyond imagine. I don't believe it's going to happen. I do the Russians want it to happen. That's the first thing.

LNG from Qatar. Qatar is an ally of the United States. It relies on the United States for security. If there's an U.S.-EU quarrel, the Emir of Qatar is not going to undermine an American cutoff of supplies of LNG to Europe. Anybody who understands the dynamics of the Gulf of the Gulf monarchies knows this. The Qatar is not going to step in. The Russians almost certainly will not step in. We already have sky high energy costs in Europe compared to everywhere else. We already see our industries across Europe becoming uncompetitive. We know that the situation with the game.

gas reserves in Europe is not good. And Kaya Callas and Osceola von der Leyen, just a few weeks ago got European member states to agree to stop buying Helene sheep from Russia. Yes, yes. It's been 2027. I was like two weeks ago. Yes, two weeks ago, exactly.

So what do they do? What do they do? You know, I was thinking about this. And the only source. solution that they have, and it's never going to happen, because I think you're exactly right, saying that the Europeans will never do it. But Russia will probably not even want this. But the only car that they have to play is, if we're going down this route, is to go to Moscow. And not so much, just not only for the energy, which is existential, but because maybe, just maybe,

if they go to Moscow, if they send Orban to Moscow, let's say, Orban, you're going to go to Moscow and then Washington. You're going to go to both. So we're going to deputize you. You're now the man, because you're the only person in Europe that can actually talk to both sides because we've burned all our bridges. We've burned our bridges with Russia. We've burned our bridges with China. We've burned our bridges with the United States. But at least Orban has kept those bridges open. So he goes to Moscow and he says June 2024. We accept it. We'll take it if it's still on the table. If you want more, okay, just tell us what that more is.

But we're ready to make a deal with the minimum June 2024. What causes? Will you open the door up to us, not only for energy, but will you open it up for bricks, for multipolar world so we can start to enter the multipolar world? Not to move away from the United States, but just to create some balance. And then Trump can do, and then Orban can do the same with Trump. And he can try to talk Trump into, I don't know, help us save some face on Greenland at least. You're going to take Greenland, we understand.

But please don't ask for more. Because if Trump takes Greenland, who says he's not going to come back in a year or so and say, well, you know, Greenland was nice, but now I want X, Y, and C. Yeah. Why not? Well, absolutely. What's going to stop him? You know, so at least you have Orban, who has played it smart and has kept the doors open to, to all sides.

So if Europe was smart, this is probably the only card that they have to play. And it's a long, long shot that this would ever happen. But at least maybe Europe can position itself as being a balance to the East and the West. You know, you're 80% with the U.S. and maybe you're 20% with the East and the Bricks. but at least you try to reestablish those bridges to the east again. I mean, it's such a long shot, but I just don't see any other option they have left. The other option is Trump takes Greenland and then you just pray to God that he doesn't come knocking on the door again and say, I want this and I want that and I want this. That's the only other way this could go.

I completely agree. And by the way, it's the second that's going to happen because they're not going to do. what you suggest. I mean, they discussed a few days ago. We discussed it in another program. They're talking about sending an EU envoy to Moscow. They can't even agree on the name. And they're talking about people like Alexander Stubb. Oh, Mario Draggie. They have the guy. They have the guy. They have Viktor Orbán. But they will never use him for that. They will never use him for that. And beyond that, they're going to be people in the EU, the very hard

people in the EU, the Baltic people, the people in the Baltics, who have an outsized influence over EU policy. It's incredible that these very small countries have basically taken control of EU foreign policy, but they have done. We have the Scandinavians as well, by the way. I mean, the Swedes are horrified by what has happened, but they're now very worried about Russians, and of course, in Finland, in the case of Finland, they're even more worried about the Russians.

to say we can't do that. We can't talk to the Russians in that way now because if we did that, if we did that in order to give ourselves cards to play against the Americans, that would burn our relations with the Americans down completely. The Americans will be furious with us. They will say you're choosing Moscow over Washington and we cannot under any circumstances afford that. The British will be saying the same. Stama is equivocating. He is refusing to come down on one side or the other. And you can see that because he wants to keep this whole NATO project Ukraine operation going.

And there is no sacrifice that he will not do and which these hardliners will not make in order to try to keep that particular show on the road. So at some point, after all the rhetoric, after all the outrage, after all the sloganizing and statements, and we will not back down and we will look at our anti-coercive measures and we will threaten American bases and talk about tearing up NATO, what they're going to do is they're going to give Donald Trump what he wants. I think that is the only plausible end point to this affair. So they will negotiate.

They will try to haggle over a price. Trump has all the cards. He's made it absolutely clear what his objective is they will sell Greenland to the United States, including all the people of Greenland. They won't like it. They may be a terrible betrayal. But that is what is going to happen. It's going to happen.

I'm sure of it. It's only a question of how it happens, what the mechanism is going to be and what the price is going to be. And given that Trump holds all the cards, he will ultimately decide the price. Some of the figures that you see, $700 billion, $800 billion, I don't believe it's going to be a fraction. of that. Yeah. Is there a possibility that at the W.E.F. had Davos, Stub and his golfing buddy, Stub. They place so much weight on the fact that Stubb is Trump's golfing buddy. Stub, macaron, Stammer. They managed to convince Trump to back off on Greenland in Davos. They managed to do it. And even if they did, even if they did manage to convince him, I mean, with Trump, he can always flip.

back and forth. It's, who knows, he may wake up the next day and say, okay, well, now Greenland is back on the table. But I mean, what are your thoughts in DaVos? Could something happen there? I mean, it could. It could be exactly that. And it'll be exactly what you say. I mean, he might agree in Davos. Well, I'm going to take off the pressure on Greenland. And, you know, we want to see Greenland in the United States, but this isn't an immediately urgent thing. And the next week, the week after, he will come back and say, I want Greenland now. I don't think it's going to happen myself. I think that Trump dizzers and weaves and changes his mind all the time, but there are a few things that he really cares about and which are fixed points in his mind.

Tariffs was one of them, by the way. Again, we were one of the very few people who said that he really He does believe in tariffs. Tariffs, I mean, he's stayed committed to tariffs. I mean, he's messed them up, he's mixed them up, he's sanctions, he's done all kinds of things about them. But he remains utterly committed to tariffs, no matter what. And I think with Greenland, Greenland is the same. He is going to get Greenland into the United States.

It's something that he believes in. It's something that he sees as part of his legacy. Obviously, to some extent, to a great extent, because we're talking about Donald Trump, it is a vanity project. But beyond that, as I said, people who say that there is no strategic rationale to this whatsoever are overstating their case. And there are people in the United States who would support this. I believe the Kremlin has said that whatever your thoughts are about Trump, whatever your

position is with Trump, if he does manage to. to move Greenland to the United States, he will be a historic president. I mean, I think that's, you know, no matter how controversial, the whole thing is, history in 10, 20, 30, 40 years will recognize that this president significantly expanded, grew the United States with Greenland. I mean, that's what the Kremlin said. I mean, they always understand Trump, much better than the European. And they also know that this is the great moment for them to basically turn the knife, stay in the wound of the Europeans and basically make them their position weaker. There was a very, very clever article that was published in the English language Russian media, which probably was intended for Trump to see, saying exactly those points.

And Peskov, Putin's spokesman, has repeated them in his meetings with the media in Russia. This is his great opportunity to become the great president of the future, just as Jefferson did the Louisiana purchase. Trump will do the Greenland purchase and was it sued the Alaska purchase. The Russians, of course, don't want to talk about that one. But anyway, there will be all of these things that they will. And of course, they will be saying, you know, this is your chance, Mr. President, to become a great president. And, well, maybe the Trump is even reciprocating because he's just apparently invited Putin onto the Gaza Peace Board alongside Tony Blair and people like that. So there you go.

So it's, you know, you can see that I don't think that the Russians are gloating over this exactly the way that Kaya Kali Kali Kali. is saying. I mean, certainly they didn't engineer this, but they're looking at the way the pieces are falling and they're making and they're using it to their advantage, as you would expect them to. Yeah. Well, you know, there's a reason that Trump appointed the Louisiana governor as the Greenland envoy. I mean, don't the Europeans get that? Don't they understand that? Just a final question. The Europeans in all of their posts on X with regards to Greenland, the other day. They never mention the minerals or the AI component or any of that. They're stuck on the security aspect against China and Russia and that this can be resolved from within NATO.

You get the sense that the Europeans are trying to say, you know, let's not air our dirty laundry to the public. Let's sit down as a family, as a transatlantic family, President Trump. But let's just discuss this amongst ourselves in private and quiet. Let's just discuss this as NATO, as one big, happy NATO family. Why are you trying to rock the boat? I find it very, very weird that there's not one European leader who can just come out and say, you know what, this is about Trump's vanity. It's about his ego.

It's about his place in history. It's about minerals. It's about rare earth. It's about AI. It's about the Arctic. It's about spheres of influence. Yes. And it's about us taking our eye off the ball.

There's not one European leader that says that. It's all this NATO stuff once again. Let's keep it in the family. Let's keep it within NATO. But, you know, Trump's message to them is, I am NATO. I am NATO. What are you talking about? Oh, she is.

But it's even worse than that. I didn't want to talk about AI. because the United States is AI, as far as the West is concerned. Europe is nowhere. We talked about the incredible ascendancy the U.S. now has over the Europeans in terms of energy. You could argue the same with every technology area. All of Europe functions on American social media platforms. Let's say that the Europeans said to themselves,

we're really going to take action against American social media platforms. Now, we're really going to censor them. And the Americans switch them off, which, by the way, I believe they can. I'm not saying, you know, we're going to get there. That leaves Europe without social media platforms. And no way to build them in any remotely viable timeframe. I mean, Europe is in a position of weakness. It has not been in since the Dark Ages, since the fall of the Roman Empire relative to outside powers.

I mean, it has no hard power at all. And it's got very little soft power also, by the way, because it's managed to infuriate so many people around the world, especially with this, as I said, single-minded, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia all the time. Putin, Putin, Putin all the time. The European 17th is saying anything else, and they haven't sorted themselves out. They haven't got a proper science, technology, industry, really. They're behind in almost every economic, industrial, scientific, technological sector. They're way behind. And they're not going to talk about AI, minerals and all of those things, because if they did that, they would be confessing to their

own extraordinary weakness, the fact that they have no cards to play. They would, I mean, if they talked about AI and Greenland and those sort of things, the inevitable question is, yes, you know, we understand that the Americans wanted for those reasons. What about us? Why didn't we in Europe do absolutely nothing with all of this and all this time? Because they can't. Because they can't.

They can't. They cannot. I mean, they're not even past first base on this. You know, just to wrap up the video, that's kind of the message that the Trump White House is also putting out there. You've done nothing with Greenland. That's kind of the message that they're putting it out there. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Exactly. Okay. We'll end the video there. I think we're in for a very interesting week at Davos anyway. Absolutely. We certainly live in interesting times. The durer.com.

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