Column by Gudrun Dometeit

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For 55 years, everyone who considers themselves important in business, politics, and science has been meeting at the World Economic Forum in the posh Swiss ski resort of Davos. For one week, it is a show of vanity, power, and wealth. The conference is sponsored by global companies such as Amazon, Nestle, and Siemens. Blackrock CEO Larry Fink took over as the new co-chair of the organization last year. So anyone who, like US President Donald Trump, spends 75 minutes boasting about their own great deeds (“Everyone is happy with me”) in defense, economics, technology, and the stock market is actually a good fit for the audience at this international conference. It's probably not the right place for self-criticism. In any case, despite the embarrassing barrage of megalomania and self-praise, many people jostled to pay homage to King Donald, shake his hands, or listen to his speech.

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It only seemed to really bother one person. Gavin Newsom, Democratic governor from California and potential presidential candidate, called the kowtowing “pathetic.” It is time to show backbone to Trump instead of becoming accomplices. “I should have brought the world leaders a set of knee pads.” When a reporter remarked that Europeans were talking about diplomacy after all, Newsom explained: “Diplomacy? Trump is a T. rex. Either you mate with him, or he devours you.” That probably flattered the US president's ego. The more terrifying, the better. The more attention, the more confirmation of his own importance.

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It was actually Trump's week. You could literally hear the Europeans breathe a sigh of relief when he assured that he did not want to seize Greenland by force. Or when, in one of his famous posts on his own social media platform Truth Social on the evening of his appearance, he announced a framework agreement with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, leaving everyone wondering what exactly he meant by that and what had prompted him to back down. It was probably a mix of reasons: Not only because Europeans threatened serious trade and financial sanctions, but also because, according to surveys, many Americans would not appreciate military action in Greenland or a purchase of the Arctic island. Trump's approval in Congress is also crumbling, and a non-partisan delegation even flew to Greenland on a solidarity visit. With the midterm elections coming up in November, Trump will not do anything that could jeopardize his majorities – especially since an incumbent president always loses votes in the midterms. And then there were the stock markets, which reacted to the looming trade war with Europe with a slide in prices. Economic arguments, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo once revealed, always appeal to Trump.  ‍

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The fiction of a rule-based order

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People make politics, and personalities are important for the course of history. Presumably, European politicians are currently spending much of their time dealing with the whims and about-turns of the US president. Some secretly hope that it will all be over in three years, that transatlantic relations will return to normal, and that the upheavals in international politics may not be so great after all.

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That, however, may be wishful thinking. Trump can only indulge his thirst for admiration and omnipotence because the US Constitution, with its incredible presidential powers, allows him to do so. But this also applies to any successor, such as his vice president, J. D. Vance, who is considered a much more intellectual and therefore, to some, more dangerous right-wing nationalist ideologue. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is among those who are preparing for a prolonged political ice age. In Davos, he called on the middle powers to face the “brutal reality” that the geopolitics of the major powers are no longer subject to restrictions. They must act together, “because those who are not at the table end up on the menu.” They could either compete for the favor of the major powers or join forces, for example by forming purchasing groups for critical raw materials, in order to assert themselves more effectively. Canada itself, which Trump has also set his sights on as the 51st state, has signed twelve new trade and security agreements on four continents in the past six months, according to Carney.

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Even more remarkable: the former central bank chief's public admission that the so-called rules-based international order – a term German politicians like to refer to – was a kind of self-deception, a useful fiction under American hegemony, as he calls it, in which countries like Canada were able to accumulate wealth and pursue a values-based foreign policy. The truth, he said, is that the “story of the rules-based order was partly false,” that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically, and that international law was applied with varying degrees of strictness depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.  We should stop invoking it.

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On a historical mission

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Trump is not the first to disregard international law, as in the case of the removal of Venezuela's head of state; a whole series of his predecessors, whether Democrats or Republicans, have also violated it. The law of force before the law has long been the norm in US foreign policy. Trump is just brazen, more blatant and doesn't stop even at a NATO partner. Whether Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, Panama, Vietnam, Chile, Iran, or Iraq – over 400 times in the course of its history, the US has intervened in the political development of other countries, either openly or through covert CIA operations, often under pretexts, especially during the Cold War, to prevent communist activities.

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Western allies have generally accepted such violations of international law because there was strong sympathy for the fight against communism or because it affected the “bad guys” – even if, in reality, it was about the economic or geopolitical interests of the US. Everyone wanted to believe it as long as Washington kept his protective hand over the allies. This was especially true of the Germans, who were particularly grateful to the Americans for the Berlin Airlift and their reconstruction aid after World War II and who, until recently, still spoke of their transatlantic friends. But times have changed. Do we actually know what makes Americans tick today? Instead of nostalgia, we should focus on sober interest-based politics.

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This is also because Trump's grab for Greenland will not be his last coup. We should have listened more closely during his inauguration speech a year ago in January. “The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation — one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations, and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.” he announced there. North and South America should henceforth no longer be subject to future colonization by any European powers, and American dominance in the Western Hemisphere should never again be questioned." Trump seriously sees himself in the tradition not only of James Monroe, who established this principle in 1823, but also of other presidents who expanded the territory of the United States, partly through purchase and partly through war. Trump wants to go down in history; he wants to be a great president. Communist Cuba could be next on the menu, according to US media.

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In this respect, his opponent Newsom's comparison with a Tyrannosaurus rex was not entirely unfounded. The name of the predator is composed of the Greek word for despot and the Latin word for king. The good news is that the voracious predator eventually became extinct.