Trump: 200% tariffs on French champagne and wines against Macron leaving the Gaza board
The US President, on the eve of his arrival in Davos, flexes his muscles at European leaders who rally around Greenland
Not long to go before 'Cyclone' Trump arrives in Davos. The US president's is not a debut but a return to the World Economic Forum, and yet Trump 2.0, strengthened by electoral consensus in his desire to shake up the old multilateral world, is already causing chaos and uncertainty before he even arrives, with shocks that are shaking theEuropean Union, the Nato and the very unity of the West.
Meanwhile, today the US president said that on Groeland 'European leaders will not put up too much resistance', threatening 200% tariffs on champagne and French wines.
The tycoon's presence in Davos is scheduled for 21 and 22 January: Wednesday with a 'special address', Thursday with what for Trump should be the first convocation of the newly formed Board of Peace, the Gaza Peacemaking Committee. Reconstruction in the enclave, along with Ukraine and Greenland, are the international crises on which the leaders present at the Forum will try to patch up. Starting with Europeans such as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the French President Emmanuel Macron. Goal: a pacifying meeting but with the need to put some stakes in the tycoon. Precisely Ukraine could represent one of the few sticking points in view of the arrival of the American delegation in 'Maga - Make America Great Again' trim - the largest ever in Davos.
The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, with his delegation aiming for a 'special address', which, however, does not appear in the Wef organisation, arrives in the Swiss snows determined to wrest an agreement with the 'willing ones', NATO and Trump on security guarantees. But he will have to reckon with rumours that Kirill Dmitriev, Russia's presidential advisor on foreign investments and negotiator with Washington, is also heading to Davos to meet with a US delegation: it would be a highly symbolic legitimisation under the US gaze, as senior Russian diplomats have not been seen at the Forum for years.
In a hotel outside the Wef in Davos, with organisation and security by Switzerland and not the Forum, a meeting of national security advisers - including the EU - from a number of countries was held which was planned to discuss Ukraine. But which reportedly also had another crisis on the table, that of Greenland: if Trump has already promised that he will annex it by wresting it from Denmark and the EU "by hook or crook" and announced further tariffs for countries that sent soldiers to Nuuk, as soon as he landed in Davos his Treasury secretary reloaded: European tariffs in response "would be very reckless" and "we will not give the security of our outsourced hemisphere to anyone else". Warnings of a potential crisis - in the meantime Denmark has cancelled its presence in Davos and announced a reinforcement of its troops in Greenland - ready to deflagrate in Switzerland. But which European leaders, US diplomats, NATO (with Secretary General Mark Rutte) during the face-to-face meetings at the Wef will try to defuse.
