The post-war international order, anchored by American power and multilateral institutions, has been in a condition of decay for the past year and last week appeared at risk of total and sudden collapse over Trump’s stance towards Greenland, the sovereign territory of NATO-ally Denmark. Trump initially refused to rule out the use of military force to annex Greenland for reasons of US “national security” and threatened to impose a 10% tariff on European states supporting Denmark’s territorial integrity and refusing to accept the possibility of the US acquiring Greenland.
Although Trump later backed down from this maximalist position during meetings with other global leaders at the WEF (World Economic Forum) conference in Davos, Switzerland, the damage has clearly been done. Trump has proven to be a spectacularly unreliable ally over the past year from the Western world’s perspective; in 2025 launching an unprovoked trade war with the EU, threatening to annex Canada as a “51st state”, and repeatedly promoting pro-Kremlin talking points while diplomatically and militarily undermining Ukraine’s position in its existential war against Russia. Despite Trump never quite following through with the full extent of his proposals, the clear risk remains that each drawback is only a temporary reprieve from a greater threat in the future.
Consequently, the EU Parliament voted to block the US-EU trade deal under discussion until the Greenland issue is fully resolved and considered activating the “trade bazooka” anti-coercion instrument, a nuclear option that would have restricted US firms’ ability to access EU markets. US-EU trade is likely to stagnate as long as the EU views the US as a potentially hostile actor with designs on its sovereign territory. Both Macron (France) and Carney (Canada) delivered notably critical speeches in which they warned of the intimidating tactics used by the US; the demise of an American-led “rules-based order” due to Trump’s brazen violation of those principles, such as a respect for state sovereignty; and a need for other Western nations to pull together in tighter multilateral arrangements excluding the US, to maintain global relevance. Many European states have dispatched additional troops to Greenland for joint military exercises, perhaps demonstrating the strengthening of regionalist blocs in the face of the erosion of globalised norms, institutions and structures.
It is worth noting that even Keir Starmer, who has traditionally adopted a much more cautious balancing-act approach to dealing with Europe and the USA, was willing to criticise some of Trump’s statements. Starmer condemned Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on European countries (including the UK) over the Greenland issue; pushed back on Trump’s description of the Chagos deal as “an act of great stupidity”; and asked Trump to apologise for his “insulting” and “appalling” comments about non-US NATO troops staying off the “frontline” in Afghanistan. Trump’s NATO comments came in the context of his claims on Greenland, stating (incorrectly) that since Denmark and NATO had done nothing for the US, the US could not be expected to be considerate of their positions in return. In reality, Denmark had the highest per-capita casualties in the Afghanistan War, the only instance of a NATO military intervention triggered by Article 5, after the US invoked it in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The view in European capitals and Ottawa seems to be that even though the worst possible outcome over Greenland has been averted at this time, the US has repeatedly proven itself to be an unreliable ally and that Europe/Canada must cultivate more regional and autonomous frameworks to preserve their relevance in an era of “hard-power” competition between the world’s great powers. The EU, for example, is nearing the final stages of a trade deal with India (itself buffeted by 50% tariff rates by the US); and nearly all Western states, with the exception of Hungary, have refused to join Trump’s new “Board of Peace”, which appears to be a thinly-disguised attempt at creating a parallel structure to the United Nations, committed to “might-makes-right” unilaterally-imposed solutions rather than genuine liberal multilateralism and global governance.
Nevertheless, it is worth noting that Western states, rather than retreating into “fortresses” (Carney) of national isolationism, may reconfigure in the long-term into more flexible arrangements of “variable geometry” – striking partnerships as and where needed on particular issues. Carney’s recent visit to Beijing and the trade deals struck there, as well as Starmer’s upcoming visit, are both illustrative of this. This is a textbook example of the “anarchical society”, in which states realise that full global integration risks dependency and vulnerability, but also realise that the negotiation of some common norms and structures are necessary to achieve national objectives. This differs from the “liberal world order” in that it is not assumed that these structures are permanent, underpinned by permanently shared moral values, or anything other than transactional and mutually convenient.