It has been one year since Donald Trump took office for a second term as United States president, and he marked the occasion with a marathon news conference in the White House briefing room, where he zig-zagged between topics ranging from immigration to the future of the United Nations.
“ It’s been an amazing period of time,” Trump said as he took the podium on Tuesday, armed with a stack of printouts.
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For more than one hour and 40 minutes, the Republican leader ran through a list of his accomplishments, touting a trend of “reverse migration” away from the US and “high economic growth”.
But the briefing was overshadowed by fraying relations between the US and its allies in Europe, as Trump pressed ahead with his campaign to own the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland.
European leaders had started to gather at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, where Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland “one way or another” cast a pall over the proceedings.
Some leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, even suggested it was time for Western allies to imagine a future without US leadership. “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Carney told his audience at Davos.
In his news briefing, Trump himself suggested that international institutions like the UN and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) might not last the test of time. Here are some of the key takeaways from his remarks.
Threatening Greenland
Trump had started his day with a fusillade of social media posts on his platform Truth Social, including one that used images generated through artificial intelligence (AI) to show the US laying claim to Canada, Greenland and Venezuela.
A second post, also generated with AI, showed Trump planting a US flag on Greenland’s soil, alongside Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The images were the latest indication that Trump planned to muscle ahead with his plans to take control of Greenland, as part of his expansionist goals for his second term.
In his news briefing, Trump expressed optimism that his pressure campaign would be successful, as he faced questions from reporters.
“ We have a lot of meetings scheduled on Greenland,” Trump said of his upcoming trip to Davos on Wednesday. “And I think things are going to work out pretty well, actually.”
He also waved aside concerns that his ambitions of territorial expansion might strip Greenlanders of their right to self-determination. “When I speak to them, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled,” he said.
Still, when confronted with questions about how far he was willing to go to acquire the island, Trump struck an ominous note, stating simply, “You’ll find out.”
Trump has previously refused to take military options off the table, and he has threatened several European allies with a tariff hike should they fail to support his claim to the self-governing island.
Weighing the future of NATO and the UN
The sabre-rattling over Greenland led one reporter at the briefing to ask whether Trump was willing to risk the breakup of the NATO alliance to achieve his expansionist agenda.
Trump responded by largely sidestepping the question. He indicated that a mutually agreeable solution could be struck.
“I think something’s going to happen that’s going to be very good for everybody,” he said of Greenland.
“I think that we will work something out where NATO’s going to be very happy and where we’re going to be very happy, but we need it for security purposes. We need a financial security and even world security.”
He also touted his efforts to boost military spending among NATO members. At a NATO summit in June, most member countries agreed to increase their defence spending to 5 percent of their gross domestic products (GDPs), though Spain successfully petitioned for an exemption.
“Nobody’s done more for NATO than I have,” Trump said, revisiting a familiar boast.
Still, he questioned one of NATO’s basic principles. Article Five of the alliance’s treaty requires member states to come to one another’s defence, should any be attacked. But under Trump, allies in Europe and Canada have speculated whether the US would abide by that commitment.
At Tuesday’s briefing, Trump appeared to flip the accusation on its head, casting doubt on whether Europe and Canada would come to the US’s aid.
“The big fear I have with NATO is we spend tremendous amounts of money with NATO, and I know we’ll come to their rescue, but I just really do question whether or not they’ll come to ours,” Trump said. “I’m just asking. Just saying.”
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