Free Republic

At an emergency summit of European Union leaders in Brussels, the building blocks of an empire were beginning to take shape. […] In a brutal new age of world powers, the EU wants to build a bigger, richer, stronger “super Europe” able to resist the dangerous whims of the globe’s autocrats. Turning 27 quarrelsome small to middle-sized powers into a geopolitical heavyweight has been Emmanuel Macron’s largely unheeded call ever since the US president’s first term. This time, though, it is different, multiple Brussels insiders have told The Telegraph. “Let’s take a step back and realize we live in a...

The prospect of a full-blown trade war between the EU and the US was averted for the second time in less than 12 months following President Donald Trump's dramatic U-turn on Greenland. For Ireland, several uncomfortable truths are emerging after this week’s geopolitical chaos. The trading relationship with the US is part of the bedrock of the Irish economic success story. It is based on Ireland providing an environment of stability for multinationals. One of the certainties important for US corporations is the level of tariffs applied to exports shipped across the Atlantic. […] Fortunately for Ireland, pharmaceuticals and computer...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon released a priority-shifting National Defense Strategy late Friday that chastised U.S. allies to take control of their own security and reasserted the Trump administration’s focus on dominance in the Western Hemisphere above a longtime goal of countering China.The 34-page document, the first since 2022, was highly political for a military blueprint, criticizing partners from Europe to Asia for relying on previous U.S. administrations to subsidize their defense. It called for “a sharp shift — in approach, focus, and tone.” That translated to a blunt assessment that allies would take on more of the burden countering...

Volodymyr Zelenskyy dropped a barrage of truth bombs on his European allies about their collective failure to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and be respected by his US counterpart, Donald Trump. Invoking the spectacle of Bill Murray's classic comedy, Groundhog Day, at a speech in Davos, the Ukrainian president said the UK and Europe are stuck in a doom loop, repeating rhetoric about what needs to be done - without taking the action required to make things change. This, he said, meant they were left scrambling to respond to world events instead of standing united as a great...

The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, resembles a pagan ritual in which wealthy, famous, and powerful people come together to worship themselves. It takes place in a secluded ski resort in the eastern Alps, so that “elites” can indulge themselves far away from the planet’s detestable riffraff (that’s you and me). I’ve always thought that if extraterrestrial visitors from another galaxy or dimension were really here and truly interested in making planet Earth a better place, they could start by using their advanced technology to suck up the mountain of globalists in Davos, jettison the whole rock...

This week in Davos has been about many things: AI, geopolitics and markets. But President Donald Trump has been firmly at the front of everyone’s mind. His much-anticipated address at the World Economic Forum drew thousands, with attendees queuing for hours to get into the Congress Hall. I was one of them. I stood in line for more than an hour and a half. Even Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwarzman had to wait in line with the rest of us. I finally cleared security and found a seat — lucky, given that many were refused entry to the hall. As...

Wednesday was the day of the opponents at the annual World Economic Forum gathering in Davos. Donald Trump and Argentina’s Javier Milei tore apart the WEF agenda. One declared globalism as officially failed, the other wielded an intellectual-ethical scalpel through the decayed body of the establishment. Norwegian Børge Brende has been the chairman of the World Economic Forum since last year. He took over after a heated internal personnel debate from the WEF’s founder, Klaus Schwab, who for decades dominated the agenda of this shadowy institution for political will-shaping. Schwab did so with undeniable success. The WEF has become an...

"If that would happen, there would be a big retaliation on our part, and we have all the cards," the US leader statedNEW YORK, January 22. /TASS/. Serious tit-for-tat measures can be taken if European countries start selling US bonds, President Donald Trump told Fox Business television in an interview. "If they do, they do. But you know, if that would happen, there would be a big retaliation on our part, and we have all the cards," Trump said. Danish pension fund AkademikerPension made the decision earlier to sell US Treasury Bonds amid the conflict around Greenland. The fund plans...

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Trump slams open borders, green energy dogma, and elite-driven economic decline.U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a blunt, confrontational address at the World Economic Forum, using the Davos stage to reject the globalist consensus that dominates the annual gathering of political and corporate elites. In a speech that cut sharply against the forum’s open-borders ideology, Trump condemned mass migration policies pushed by Western governments and international institutions, announcing that his administration would immediately halt federal funding to so-called “sanctuary cities.” He dismissed them as “sanctuaries for criminals,” arguing that unchecked immigration undermines public safety, wages,...

According to journalist Fareed Zakaria, the EU was relieved by Trump's backtracking on plans to take Greenland by forceWASHINGTON, January 23. /TASS/. Europe won't forget the disdain the administration of US President Donald Trump has shown it, The Washington Post cited an unnamed European leader as saying. In an opinion column on the foreign policy course of the current American administration with regard to Washington's claims to Greenland, journalist Fareed Zakaria quoted "one of the senior European leaders" as confirming that the EU was relieved by Trump's backtracking on plans to take Greenland by force. "But we’ve now seen a...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that Europe is too reliant on the US for its security, as he questioned the response from NATO if Russia was to invade another European nation. “Europe needs united armed forces, forces that can truly defend Europe today,” he said during his speech in Davos. “Europe relies only on that belief that if danger comes, NATO will act, but no one has really seen the alliance in action.” He questioned who would respond if Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Lithuania or strike Poland. “Right now NATO exists thanks to the belief that the...

<p>The protesters, including the territory’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, waving a Greenlandic flag, chanted slogans and traditional Inuit songs under light rain.</p><p>Many wore caps with the words “Make America Go Away” — a riff on Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.</p>

n 1969, Charles de Gaulle told his friend André Malraux that America’s “desire – and one day it will satisfy it – is to desert Europe. You will see.” It has taken nearly six decades, but de Gaulle’s prophecy now looks uncomfortably close to fulfillment. After years of diplomatic effort to manage, placate and charm successive American presidents – and Donald Trump in particular – European leaders are coming to a grim realization: the United States is, at best, indifferent to their interests and sensibilities and, at worst, openly hostile to them. Some, such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, still believe...

As 79-year-old US President Donald Trump enters the second year of his second term, questions about his physical and cognitive health are a recurring topic amid viral images, defiant responses from the White House and a lack of medical disclosure. The debate echoes earlier controversies around the health of US leaders – and raises uncomfortable questions about transparency and power. Let’s be clear: we have no idea what his health condition is. All we can really assess is what we see,” presidential historian Barbara Perry says. “And what we witness is an almost octogenarian man who keeps nodding off at...

Donald Trump’s attempt to bully his Nato allies into handing over Greenland by imposing tariffs is, even by his standards, a step too far. The President is used to getting what he wants — to use his own words, “the soft way or the hard way”. And with one eye on his historical legacy, Mr Trump seems determined to purchase or annex the Arctic island, even if in the process he unleashes a trade war and destroys the Atlantic alliance. Nothing can justify this exercise of raw power. The US already has a base in Greenland and could, if it...

The return of hard-power politics is no longer a theoretical debate for Europe. From U.S. military action in Venezuela to President Donald Trump’s renewed pressure over Greenland, long-standing assumptions about a rules-based international order are being openly tested as geopolitical competition sharpens. Sir Robin Niblett, Distinguished Fellow at Chatham House, told TVP World’s On the Record that the Trump administration represents a fundamental break with decades of U.S. alliance policy. “This is a U.S. administration that believes in ‘might is right,’” Niblett said. “The view of President Trump himself is that alliances are sources of leverage, not sources of solidarity.”...

SNIP While many European leaders are still hoping they might be able to talk things out, discussions have essentially been futile so far. Europe has been hesitant to retaliate against the United States, in part because it relies on America for military technologies and support for NATO. But Brando Benifei, a member of the European Parliament and the chair of its delegation for U.S. relations, said that calculus may be shifting, in part because popular opinion in Europe has turned more critical of the U.S. “A lot of people are saying that we are clearly over a red line,” he...

Summary EU ambassadors will hold an emergency meeting later after Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on allies who are against his proposed takeover of Greenland Trump says he plans to raise import taxes on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland A 10% tariff would apply from 1 February, and could later rise to 25%, the US president says UK PM Keir Starmer says Trump's threat is "completely wrong", while French President Emmanuel Macron calls it "unacceptable" Denmark's Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen says the threat has "come as a surprise" as Danish...

Keir Starmer has said Donald Trump’s decision to impose 10% tariffs on the UK and seven other European countries over Greenland was “completely wrong”. The US president said the levies would apply from 1 February to Nato members – including the UK, France and Germany – who have deployed troops to the territory in response to growing uncertainty over its future. Trump said the tariffs would rise to 25% on 1 June if a deal to buy Greenland had not been reached. In a Truth Social post, Trump said: “Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and...

Donald Trump has announced that he will impose increasing tariffs on eight European countries unless they agree to let the US take over Greenland. Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands will be hit by a 10 percent levy on 'any and all goods' entering the US from February 1, the president announced on Truth Social on Saturday. Trump said that if no deal was reached by June 1, the tariff will increase to 25 percent. The president, who referred to himself as 'the tariff king,' called on Denmark to relinquish the mineral-rich territory by claiming world...