Quote of the day 23rd January 2026

Andrew Neil's monologue on Trump's Greenland climbdown:


"So it’s peace in our time after all. 

Trump marched his ego to the top of the hill then marched it down again. 

After numerous demands that he be allowed to annex Greenland coupled with threats of penal tariffs on anybody who opposed him, Trump backed off in Davos yesterday, agreeing a framework with NATO to bolster security in the High North — Greenland and the Arctic region. 

NATO secretary-general Marc Rutte, who brokered the deal, says US ownership of Greenland — something Trump had insisted was essential for US security — wasn’t even raised in his Trump talks. 

So it was all much ado about nothing. A waste of everybody’s time for those covering this story and for those trying to follow it. Sorry about that. 

The usual Trump sycophants and know-nothings are piling in to claim it’s all just another example of his negotiating genius, the art of the deal in action again, in all its vain glory. 

He played hardball with the Europeans to get a better Greenland deal than was otherwise available — and succeeded. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. 

This was TACO in action — Trump always chickens out. A speedy Trump surrender on a grand scale. A victory for European NATO for refusing to be cowed or bludgeoned by a bully. 


You will find there is nothing in the framework agreement covering Greenland and the Arctic region that hasn’t been available to Trump for weeks, months, years. 

  • A much bigger US military presence. 
  • More US bases. 
  • Use of Greenland for Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield defence, which is still more a wing and a prayer than a reality. 
  • Privileged access to rare earth resources.  


All were available under existing arrangements, with Denmark saying many times, with European NATO backing, that it’s happy to go look at anything else Trump has in mind, bar, of course, the forcible annexation of Greenland. 

So we are where we could have been months ago. 

European NATO has long recognised more needs to be done to bolster security in the High North, that Greenland has taken on an enhanced strategic significance with melting ice opening up sea lanes through the Arctic, Russian expanding its missile bases on its Arctic coastline and the scramble for rare earths. 

Now America and European NATO will address all that together, as they should. It was never a matter of contention between them until Trump made it so with his talk of annexation. 

But Trump gets nothing that wasn’t on offer before he started throwing his toys out the pram.  


European NATO is breathing a sigh of relief. But all Trump’s shenanigans over Greenland leaves the Atlantic Alliance bruised and battered. European NATO can now be in no doubt that Trump’s America is not a reliable ally. 

The Russians have already clocked that, to their delight. The Kremlin has been cheering Trump on from the sidelines, claiming his annexing of Greenland would be no different from Russia’s annexing of Crimea. When America and Russia have more in common than America and European NATO then you can be sure NATO is still in crisis. 

European NATO urgently needs to reconfigure the Alliance so it’s a lot less vulnerable to grandstanding and bullying in the future, from Trump or a JD Vance. 

That would suit Trump. He doesn’t really have much interest in Europe anyway. And most of his MAGA advisers have a visceral hatred for all things European, bar some parties of the populist far right. 


Trump has backed down. But it’s no less of a wake up call for European NATO with a rearmament programme far greater than anything it’s yet contemplated. 

It needs to get its act together before the next Trump-inspired crisis. 

And realise that Trump doesn’t always back down."


Andrew Neil

(Source: Andrew Neil on X: "My monologue on Trump’s Greenland climbdown from today’s The Times at One with Andrew Neil: So it’s peace in our time after all. Trump marched his ego to the top of the hill then marched it down again.  After numerous demands that he be allowed to annex Greenland coupled with" / X)

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