Donald Trump's Actions During Second Term Will Devastate MAGA

This week, Donald Trump went to the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, where he antagonized longtime U.S. allies and delivered a rambling speech that had attendees heading for the exits.

By the end of the day on Wednesday, Trump had reached a “deal” with NATO on Greenland that left the United States with something less than full control of the territory, but did have the U.S. agreeing to pull back on threatened tariffs.

This week, The Guardian’s Rafael Behr wrote a column with the headline, “Donald Trump is not forgetting America’s old alliances – his goal is to destroy them.”

Donald Trump is not forgetting America’s old alliances – his goal is to destroy them | Rafael Behrhttps://t.co/WnxrTJLDpS

— Guardian Opinion (@theguardianfeed) January 21, 2026

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“No head of a democratic government has been able to restrain Trump’s vandalism for long. Flattery, bargaining, and occasional flashes of assertiveness have been tried with limited success. No formula dissolves the carapace of venal self-interest,” Behr writes, citing the example of Angela Merkel, who was the chancellor of Germany during Trump’s first term.

“Earlier this week, Keir Starmer, facing the threat of new tariffs as punishment for declaring solidarity with Denmark over Greenland, called for calm diplomacy. He was repaid with an unhinged social media rant lambasting the UK’s decision to relinquish sovereignty of the Chagos Islands. Trump, who previously approved of that deal, now calls it an act of “great stupidity” that somehow validates US territorial demands in the North Atlantic,” the Guardian writer said.

The is not a new deal – this is Trump surrendering. For now. They have always said that the US & NATO is free to do what it wants in Greenland from a military perspective. Trump said that wasn’t good enough because he needs the US to “own” it. So this is simply Trump backing down pic.twitter.com/5S74f9Wfl1

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 21, 2026

“No argument rooted in liberal principle and no appeal to US national advantage from multilateral collaboration can be more compelling to the president than his instinctive affinity with despots who would carve the world into fiefdoms. And of all the devices for influencing Trump, none is surer to fail than the invocation of history.”

“The benefits of upholding a rules-based international order cannot compete with such gratifications of monarchial vanity. The specter of global lawlessness holds no menace to a ruler who is confident of supremacy, or at least a monopoly over the western hemisphere, in a world where might makes right. Such a man is unmoved by the risk that the demise of economic cooperation and escalating trade rivalries will provoke dashes for resource domination, aggravate territorial disputes and generate wars.”

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