The tense high-wire act that we witnessed this week will bring no comfort to Europe or to Ireland.
US president Donald Trump eventually called his own bluff on his deranged plan to buy Greenland with a rambling self-aggrandising speech in Davos.
He ended up saying there would be no military campaign in Greenland, withdrew the threat of tariffs against eight European countries and conceded in a roundabout way that the US would probably not be able to buy the Danish protectorate.
Typically, he bragged that it was a win. It was a “forever deal”, he claimed, “that people jumped at, really fantastic for the USA, gets everything we wanted, including especially real national security and international security.”
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He also called Greenland “Iceland” three times in the course of an hour-long rambling speech delivered off the cuff.
In our main story this morning, Eoin Burke-Kennedy and Jack Power report that Trump has dropped his threat of tariffs after having reached a deal with Nato on the island’s future.
The heightening of the crisis over Greenland in recent weeks had created a really tricky political quandary for the Irish Government. The State’s economic policy is predicated on a twin reliance on Boston and Berlin. Most of the State’s foreign direct investment and employment comes from US companies; and exports to the US were worth well in excess of €100 billion in 2025.
Notably, while echoing support for, and solidarity with, Denmark and Greenland the Government has not directly criticised Trump or his administration for its latest take on the Monroe doctrine.
Unsurprisingly, Taoiseach Micheál Martin welcomed the climbdown. “Collectively we need to de-escalate this situation, we need to dial down and engage in those areas that matter.”
But if Trump didn’t win, neither did Europe or Ireland. The spat has exposed fundamental weakness in the EU outside the economic realm, particularly around security.
So, where does it go from here?
In Trump’s first term, what happened in the past fortnight over Greenland could be put down to posturing. But in the second term, there is no guarantee that the US president won’t return to this subject.
As Eoin and Jack report: “The EU summit is still expected to sound out the levels of political support for various steps of possible retaliation, in the event the Trump administration resumes its threats of tariffs in pursuit of Greenland.
“French president Emmanuel Macron was expected to advocate for the EU to take a tougher stance in its relations with the White House than it has to date.”
Has the die already been cast? Has the bull already entered the china shop? A global arrangement for security and international relations that has been in place since the end of the second World War is hanging on by a thread.
As Daniel Geary, professor of US history at TCD, argues in an opinion piece, the American president is arguing that Greenland is the pound of flesh for all the US has done for Europe.
He quotes Trump: “A very small ask compared to what we have given them for many, many decades.”
Geary concludes by asking the fundamental question about whether those long-standing relations can return to the status quo ante.
“[Trump] is living out a dream of possessing power without limits. Greenland is emerging as his Moby Dick: the white whale that he is obsessed with conquering. And even should this crisis pass without any serious rupture of the transatlantic alliance, how can European nations possibly rely on the US as an ally with Trump in office and with most of the Republican Party embracing his contempt for his European allies?"
Best Reads
Miriam Lord has been observing how Irish politicians have reacted to Trump’s taunts in a superlative column.
She writes: “This significant session in Leinster House was originally entitled ‘Statements on the State of Chassis’ but it was changed to ‘International Developments’ when it was feared that Trump might attempt to buy the State of Chassis from under the noses of the Irish people.”
Eoin Burke-Kennedy, who is in Davos, gives an account of Trump’s self-serving and self-aggrandising speech there.
Ellen Coyne has a heads-up on Helen McEntee’s first big speech as Minister for Foreign Affairs, which she will deliver today. She will address what she sees as the “rising level of Euroscepticism in our country”.
Sarah Burns reports from the Oireachtas on the lack of treatment for patients with eating disorders.
Playbook
While the threat of tariffs and forced annexation of Greenland has receded, European leaders will still meet in Brussels today for an extraordinary summit.
Dáil Éireann
Early start for the Dáil today
8.47am: Parliamentary Questions to Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill
10.24am: Parliamentary Questions to Minister for Housing James Browne
12pm: Leaders’ Questions
1.52pm: Criminal Law and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 – Second Stage
5.16pm: Topical Issues
6.16pm: Private Members’ Bill, River Boyne Task Force Bill 2023 – Second Stage
8.15pm: Dáil adjourns
Seanad Éireann
9.30am: Commencement
12.30pm: Mental Health Bill 2024 – Committee Stage (resumed)
3pm: Adjourns
Committees
9.30am: Committee on Children – child poverty and deprivation
10.30am: Public Accounts Committee - financial statements from St James’s Hospital
12.30pm: Joint Committee on Drugs – engagement on nitrous oxide and inhalants
12.30pm: Joint Committee on Disability - primary care, delivery of policy and services for people with disabilities
