Europe after Davos: A tale of two Marks

Making merry with the luminaries of global commerce was not why Donald Trump made the trek to Davos.

The US President had other goals in mind. Driving a stake through the heart of the liberal rules-based order, right before the eyes of those whose wealth and power depends on it, seems to have been one of them.

The US President did row back on his threat to invade Greenland. He also mothballed the new tariffs he had waved at European countries, making a deal with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (the outline of which is still not available).

But those concessions did little to soften the brutality of his message.

Examining last week’s fallout, one repercussion is clear. With three years left in Emperor Donald’s reign, the thought that the rules-based order might be salvageable ‘on the other side’ no longer enjoys support in Europe.

As in his first mandate, the real-estate tycoon’s return to the White House has split European politics down the middle. One side argues we should grin and bear it until normalcy returns, a view once prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe, the UK and other Atlanticist strongholds across the continent.

The other side sees an epochal shift, not an interlude before business as usual, but the end of the Pax Americana. To retain its freedom, the continent needs to wean itself off dependency on the US, a view popular in Paris and Madrid, and gathering strength in Berlin.

The Greenland fiasco appears to have settled this debate. Until now, the idea that Europe should de-risk from the United States always appeared slightly quixotic to mainstream European politicians. It carried the whiff of a brand of anti-Americanism that centrists have always found hard to identify with, uncomfortable to talk about, if not completely hare-brained. But this vision is now squarely occupying the centre of European politics.

In Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, it has found a new champion. The rules-based order, the former central banker argued in his widely-praised speech at the World Economic Forum, has been a chimera for a while, an appearance that states maintain because they find it useful or do not want to rock the boat.

His plea is to ‘live the truth’, to openly acknowledge the liberal order’s death, clearing the path to an alternative, less dependent on the US. Echoing Thucydides, Carney discerns a future in which the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must. But middle powers are able to fight back by banding together, jointly securing their interests against the predatory instincts of great powers such as the United States.

However, it rapidly became clear that Carney’s truth also constrains his own strategic vision. ‘Canada lives because of the United States,’ Trump responded icily. ‘Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements’. It was not long before the US President took to Truth Social to bully Canada with 100 per cent tariffs, should Carney proceed with plans to diversify its trade ties with China.

For Europe it may now be evident it must de-risk from the US. But the question remains how? Given its deep dependency on Washington, for example in defence and tech, the continent needs time to achieve that feat. And until it does, it remains exposed to Trump’s coercive impulse, which somehow must be constrained.

This leaves Europe’s leaders in a bind, even after Davos. Should they try to deter Trump with the EU’s anti-coercion bazooka and other tools of power, and risk an escalation they cannot control? Or should they continue to bank on flattery and diplomacy?

For the latter task, recent events have revealed that Europe’s strongest card is Mark Rutte, returning from the Swiss mountains as ‘Europe’s Trump whisperer-in-chief’. His superpower is not oratory nor strategic vision. It is personal charm, sweet talk and a large dose of shamelessness.

While Carney offered strategic direction for the future only to then find himself in a brawl, Rutte sat down with Trump and managed to defuse the Greenland crisis (at least for now), giving Europe time to catch its breath.

If the rest of the West is ever to fully free itself from US coercion, it may end up needing the qualities of both Marks. And it will need these virtues to act in unison and in a balanced way.

Flattery, diplomacy and making (unequal) deals with Trump to pacify his instincts should never stop Europe from quietly securing its sovereignty in the future – that would merely set it on the road to vassalage.

But for now, they are likely to remain essential survival skills.