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    Speak hysterically and carry a big stick: Trump’s foreign policy threats

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    In his second term, Trump’s bluster has been accompanied by an emotional and aggressive approach to foreign policyThis was originally published in This Week in Trumpland; sign up to receive it in your inbox every WednesdayTheodore Roosevelt, the 26th president, characterized his approach to international relations as “speak softly and carry a big stick”. It was an approach that won him a Nobel peace prize in 1906, for his role in ending the Russo-Japanese war.In recent days, Donald Trump’s own take on diplomacy has come into focus, one that might be characterized thusly: speak hysterically and threaten to use (and sometimes actually use) a big stick. This idiosyncratic approach to statecraft has yet to win Trump a Nobel peace prize, although that is something that the president has said – many, many times – does not bother him at all. Continue reading… More

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      ‘You’ll find out’: Trump refuses to say how far he would go to seize Greenland

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      President also declines to offer any reassurances about his commitment to the stability of Nato allianceDonald Trump ratcheted up the uncertainty over how far he would be willing to go to acquire Greenland as he warned the Nato alliance on Tuesday that it was only as strong as the United States allowed it to be.“You’ll find out,” Trump said in a terse reply at a White House press briefing before moving to the next question. Continue reading… More

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      If it wasn’t clear before, it is now: Britain needs an escape plan from the Trump world order | Gaby Hinsliff

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      The US president’s trade war for Greenland tells us that the time for fence-sitting or wishful thinking is overOne way or the other, President Trump said, he will have Greenland. Well, at least now we know it’s the other; not an invasion that would have sent young men home to their mothers across Europe in coffins, but instead another trade war, designed to kill off jobs and break Europe’s will. Just our hopes of an economic recovery, then, getting taken out and shot on a whim by our supposedly closest ally, months after Britain signed a trade deal supposed to protect us from such arbitrary punishment beatings. In a sane universe, that would not feel like a climbdown by the White House, yet by comparison with the rhetoric that had Denmark scrambling troops to Greenland last week it is.That said, don’t underestimate the gravity of the moment.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading… More

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      If Donald Trump thinks Greenland should be his, how long before he sets his sights on Scotland? | Zoe Williams

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      By the expansionist logic of the president and his advisers, the US is entitled to annex just about anywhere‘We do need Greenland, absolutely,” Donald Trump told the Atlantic on 5 January, with the hand-wavy follow-up, “We need it for defence.” His adviser Stephen Miller was more aggressive still in an interview with CNN, saying: “The real question is, by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? What is the basis of their territorial claim? … The US is the power of Nato … obviously Greenland should be part of the United States.” His wife, Katie Miller, posted an image on X of a map of the country papered over with the US flag, with the caption “soon”. It’s hard to orientate sensibly towards things that happen on X these days: if she had posted a Grok-generated image of Greenland in a bikini, would that be more or less concerning?Still, we’re right to be concerned. There is no comfort to be had from old-era ideas such as: “Maybe they’re just sabre-rattling about Greenland to distract from the matter of Venezuela”, or “surely the foundational principles of Nato, a defensive alliance, will prevent the US from any act of aggression towards its own allies?”Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading… More