Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us. Last week, a lot went down when President Donald Trump went to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Trump escalated his demands for Greenland and then walked back on his threats after announcing a framework of a future deal on Greenland with NATO.
But we still don't really have any details on that. This whole situation has caused and sort of added to a lot of conversation outside of the United States. about how the rest of the world should respond to Trump. And it's put the economic relationship between the U.S. and Europe back into the spotlight. We wanted to learn more about how all this news is being received outside the U.S.
So today we're talking with Paola Tama.
Chapter 2: What happened during Trump's Davos appearance?
She's a correspondent for the Financial Times who covers the EU economy from Brussels, Belgium. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Hi, Kimberly. Hi. So how have the Europeans been reacting to the news coming out of the United States lately?
Chapter 3: How did Trump escalate and then walk back his Greenland threats?
Well, shell-shocked is an often used adjective, but it definitely does fit the situation that we lived in one week ago when President Trump unleashed his threat of tariffs if he didn't get Greenland. And the week just proceeded in a frenzy with European officials trying to make sense of this threat, trying to defuse it.
And then eventually taking a big collective sigh of relief on the Wednesday when he announced that he would not use force. And then another one when it emerged that after a meeting with Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte, there was the contours of a deal, which meant that, you know, the tariff threats would be walked back.
But that said, even though the initial issue is right now off the table, there is a lot of head scratching going on around Europe on how to deal with the US going forward.
And I think that this threat, which hasn't been the first to levy tariffs on the EU, but it has been the first in the context of a potential territorial annexation of one of its allies, has really awoken Europeans to the fact that Relations with the U.S. are unpredictable. They are potentially untrustworthy as a partner. And what does that mean for Europeans?
And how do we deal with that issue going forward? It's still a question that's very much alive.
It feels like this Greenland situation really marked a distinct change in how Europe is choosing to interact with the president. It felt like early on in this second round of his administration, there really was an attempt to kind of just go along to get along, to placate Trump. And then there was a shift here. Is that a fair assessment?
I think so, at least in part. I was covering also the EU-US negotiations on trade last summer when they achieved a very lopsided trade deal, one where the US would get lower tariffs on its exports to the EU, whereas the EU accepted a 15%. So an increase in in the tariffs that its products get levied in the US. And why did we take that deal?
Well, because there was a realization that we couldn't have done any better, that in those circumstances, it was the better deal on the table. And in the deep, in the back of the mind of everybody, the fact that the EU needs the US on other fronts too, specifically on security with NATO and with Ukraine. And so at the time, the word of the day was appeasement and trying to get to an agreement.
Whereas what happened this time is, I think, you know, there was really a realization that this time we have to do something and we have to respond differently because, A, Denmark is such a fundamental issue, not because of Greenland per se, but because of the threat of territorial integrity from an ally.
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Chapter 4: What has been the European reaction to Trump's threats?
It could include a range of very different things. In order to trigger it, you would need a qualified majority of EU countries, so that's countries representing at least 65% of the EU population, to task the Commission with using it. But obviously, if there are very strong voices against it, like, say, France or Germany or Italy, then it's unlikely that this would happen.
So that's sort of how European leaders have been responding. How has the public's attitude towards the Trump administration and America shifted over the last year since he came back to office?
I think that there's a real shift. If you see polls, for instance, a recent one late last week, over half of Europeans perceive Trump, President Donald Trump, as the enemy of Europe. And almost three quarters of Europeans think that Europe can only count on itself in terms of defense. So they do not think the U.S. would come to its rescue. And that's a real shift in public opinion.
And I think, interestingly, also parties and leaders in Europe, which would be aligned naturally with Trump and even the MAGA movement, they have had to kind of realize that Trump doesn't have Europe's best interest at heart. And so you would have seen statements from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, who, even though she is seen as one of the most Trump-aligned parties,
European leaders and one that seeks to be a bridge builder, she had to respond to public opinion in Italy to some of the statements that Trump made about allies not coming to the US rescue or staying out of the fights, for instance, in Afghanistan. And she had to call him out on that. And she had to say, we do not accept this.
This was incredibly controversial in Europe that Trump basically said that, you know, allies hadn't shown up for the United States. And Famously, the United States is the only member of NATO to ever call on the allies to show up. And they did when we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan to loss of life from many European allies.
So, I mean, I can't I have to imagine that just infuriated people over there.
Absolutely. And it's something that, you know, even leaders who would be otherwise rather mild in their response could just not ignore because public opinion has reacted to this and has shifted quite significantly vis-a-vis the United States.
So, you know, you mentioned the trade bazooka, right? And this instrument that people were a bit hesitant to use. But what tools do remain for European leaders to kind of push back against Trump at this point?
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Chapter 5: How are European officials reassessing their relationship with the U.S.?
And secondly, there is the very real risk that Anything we do on the economic front could backfire in terms of the U.S. withdrawing support on the military and security front, which is the ultimate side of this relationship, which Europeans do not want to hurt.
I want to get more to the security side after we take a quick break. We're going to be right back. All right, we are back with Paola Tama of the Financial Times.
It strikes me what you said earlier about this link between the economic interest and the security interest that European leaders are having to balance as they think about their relationship with the United States, particularly when it comes to Ukraine. Can you explain how you've seen the narrative and the thinking shift in terms of the US-European relationship,
when it comes to Ukraine over the last year of this Trump administration? Sure.
I think that one very key moment where this shift happened was the Alaska summit last summer, where there appeared to be the potential peace deal between the US and Russia being drawn up completely without consulting, not just Ukraine, but the whole of Europe.
And this has really set Europeans into motion and trying to gain a seat at the table with a number of rounds of so-called coalition of the willing meetings.
So these are meetings between some of your leaders, the UK, Norway, other participants, which are often opened up also to US negotiators in order to have at least a forum where Europeans and Ukraine are at a table where peace and security on this continent are being discussed. So in that sense, there has been some success from Europeans to gain some say in matters that concern them directly.
But then it's always a bit of a struggle. So even now, currently, there are trilateral talks going on between Russia, US and Ukraine, and Europeans seek to influence these as much as possible, but they do not have control over them. So the feeling that the US would Having a deal with Ukraine and Russia above what could be Ukraine's and European security interests is very real.
And it's something that European leaders are very aware of and they're trying to avert in any way possible.
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