President Donald Trump’s every move – on social media, chatting with the press and in person – is facing more scrutiny than ever.
But it surely’s not only the general public apprehensive about his actions in Greenland, with NATO and more European leaders have dedicated a gaggle chat called ‘The Washington Group’ to unpack his ‘potentially damaging’ moves.
Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, Finland’s Alexander Stubb, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, and even Volodymyr Zelensky are within the chat, which also features European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Every time Trump does something worrying on a world scale, the group begins chatting.
A source aware of the group told Politico: ‘When things start moving quickly, it’s hard to do the coordination, and this group [chat] is actually effective. It tells you lots in regards to the personal relationships and the way they matter.’
A lot of the messages are about responding to his policy actions, quite than rapidly responding to his often provocative statements, the source said.
During a press conference this evening, Trump was asked about his relationship with Macron and Starmer.
He told reporters: ‘I feel I get along well with them. They all the time treat me well. They get just a little rough after I’m not around, but after I’m around they treat me very nicely.
‘I like each of them, they’re each liberal. They’ve got to straighten out their countries. London has loads of problems, Paris has loads of problems.’
He named immigration and energy because the ‘problems’ he was referring to, hitting out at what he called ‘the windmills’ and backing use of North Sea oil and gas.
Trump’s recent actions in Greenland have little question apprehensive members of the group, a lot of whom are in Davos for the World Economic Forum this week.
The US President has maintained pressure on European allies over his demand to seize control of Greenland as markets fell in response to his tariff threats.
He also launched an attack on the UK decision to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, revealed messages from European leaders and posted images showing Greenland as US territory.
Trump went and fired off a flurry of posts on his Truth Social platform overnight.
He posted a doctored image of European leaders within the Oval Office taking a look at a map on which Greenland, Canada and Venezuela were all covered within the US flag.
And he shared a picture showing him, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio raising the flag on Greenland next to an indication proclaiming it as ‘US territory est. 2026’.
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In an indication of international leaders’ efforts to steer Trump back to more traditional diplomacy, the US president posted a picture of a text message from France’s Emmanuel Macron offering to host an impromptu summit of G7 leaders in Paris on Thursday.
Within the message, Macron said ‘I don’t understand what you might be doing on Greenland’.
He offered to establish a gathering of the G7, which incorporates the UK, alongside representatives from Denmark, Ukraine, Russia and Syria and likewise invited Trump to dinner in Paris.
Trump also published a message from Nato chief Mark Rutte saying: ‘I’m committed to finding a way forward on Greenland’ and promising to make use of media appearances in Davos to focus on the US president’s work on Syria, Ukraine and Gaza.
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