Oh, he'll be comin' round the mountain

Even before 'WTF' Trump arrives at WEF in Davos on Wednesday, it looks unlikely the EU will be able to make the real estate developer-president see reason over Greenland by invoking its 'anti-coercion instrument'. The EU as a bloc may be its largest trading partner. But the US economy does much more trade in North America and Asia. Efforts to diversify EU trade will take time. Trump has threatened tariffs on goods trade with the EU, in which the US runs a deficit. EU retaliation that does not involve services, where the US has a surplus, will not be an effective deterrent for the Trump regime. Invoking the anti-coercion instrument will rope in services. But that makes it even more difficult to use against the US given the EU's digital dependence on Silicon Valley. Unlike China, which has developed local alternatives across a broad tech spectrum. The EU has made the US its strategic and economic backstop and it won't be easy to take on a 'friend' that acts like a foe.

The experiment that is the EU was not designed for geopolitical presence, rather to keep peace on the European continent. Brussels simply can't exert against Washington with Moscow in its neighbourhood. Western Europe has tailored its foreign policy to US dictates for the better part of a century. Changing that arrangement will require a fundamental rethink about the notion of European unification. The euro is no pretender to the currency of commerce, and promising candidates are available within BRICS. Trump wants Europe to cough up more for Nato. It is very likely he will get what he wants as protection money.

US intervention in the energy market tilts the scale even further against the EU. If the Venezuela gambit plays out as planned, Europe will have little choice but to defend Trump's strategy over critical minerals. The Greenland question then becomes a fait accompli. The best course for the EU would be to reason it out with its long-standing ally. The theme at Davos, after all, is 'A spirit of dialogue'. But, then, irony will be on skis the next four days.