Have I not earned some kind of small victory lap? When Donald Trump floated new tariffs on Europe over Greenland, the reaction was immediate panic and breathless speculation. From the start, this never looked like a policy endpoint to me. It looked like a setup. The legal footing for unilateral tariffs is shaky, the Supreme Court is clearly circling the president’s authority under IEEPA, and Trump has shown again and again that he prefers maximal threats to force negotiations rather than prolonged economic warfare.
That is exactly how this played out. By the time Trump settled down in Davos following his Greenland remarks, the tariff talk had cooled, a “framework” agreement with NATO was announced, and markets relaxed. The familiar pattern followed. Critics accused Trump of backing down, supporters praised his negotiating genius, and everyone else started to move onto other issues. The real question is not whether tariffs happened, but whether the process strained U.S. relations with Europe more than it needed to. Greenland was not a priority a week ago, and it probably won’t be one a week from now. The concern is what residue this leaves behind.
