Outside the Beltway

Comments

1. DK says:
   Friday, 23 January 2026 at 06:22

   From Robert Guest, deputy editor of The Economist:

   It is testimony to America’s unmatched power that hundreds of the world’s richest and most influential people elbowed their way into a room this week to listen to Donald Trump ramble, lie and insult them for more than an hour. But listen they did, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, perhaps groaning inwardly when he suggested that China has no wind farms (it is the largest generator of wind power in the world), that economic growth in America will soon be faster than it has ever been anywhere (it won’t), or that there was “nothing wrong” with old-fashioned imperialism (please).

   Mr Trump commands the world’s attention because no one knows what he will say next, and his office gives him the muscle to turn terrible ideas into action. This week’s crisis concerned Greenland. Though Mr Trump struggles to remember the Danish island’s name (he called it “Iceland” four times in his speech), he yearns to annex it. He says America needs it for national security. But since America can already build as many military bases on Greenland as it likes, and American firms are free to bid for mining contracts there, cynics suspect that what Mr Trump really cares about is adding a huge piece of real estate (which looks supersized in the Mercator projection) to American territory.

   …Though Mr Trump switched to a more conciliatory tone, suggesting he would not use force against a fellow member of NATO and promising to make some kind of deal, he revealed a snarling contempt for Europe—and for alliances based on democratic values. We argue that Europeans should preserve what they can of NATO, but prepare for a world without it.

   The next president has a doozy of a repair job, assuming we make that long with anything savalagable (big if, far from guaranteed). Hillary called the orange pedo Putin’s puppet nearly a decade ago. She was right.

   Reply

Speak Your Mind