Analysis: For Trump and European leaders, Davos was a 'Dear John' summit

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and European leaders broke up this week. Or, at the very least, the longtime members of the trans-Atlantic alliance are taking a break.

The American diplomat in chief spent two days at a global summit in Switzerland ushering in a new U.S. foreign policy, one based more on individual transactions and less on decades-old alliances.

Trump and some of his top aides made clear in Davos during the World Economic Forum that the his administration sees far less value than his predecessors in standing shoulder to shoulder with Europe.

In fact, Trump’s muscular Wednesday address to the forum and a Thursday event launching his Board of Peace collectively amounted to a diplomatic “Dear John letter” to capitals across the Old Continent.

“Everybody in this room is a star, or you wouldn’t be here. ... You’re the biggest people, the most important people in the world, most powerful people in the world,” Trump said to those onstage.

Notably, there were no leaders from major European powers onstage. What’s more, Trump broke with tradition by holding no official bilateral sessions with any major European leader in Davos.

Perhaps more than ever, Trump appeared eager to tear down the post-World War II order that previous U.S. presidents built and maintained for close to a century.

Over his two days there, he chided and mocked European leaders, casting them as ineffective and inconsequential. In a surprise move Wednesday, he announced the “framework” of a possible path toward a deal on Greenland’s future, though he was scant on details. On Thursday, he accused NATO members of seeking a “free ride” via Washington’s massive defense budget and military might.

“This is not going to be a waste of time. We waste so much time on things that never happened,” Trump said at the Board of Peace event. “Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do.”

He did offer a caveat that contradicted a decade of his own public canon: “We’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations,” a body he’s criticized for over a decade.

To that end, Trump also did not mask his frustration with the global organization, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped create.

“I’ve always said the United Nations has got tremendous potential. Has not used it,” he said.

‘President of action’

Trump’s solution? Build a new international group, hand-pick its roster — and install himself at the head of its table.

“This board has the chance to be one of the most consequential bodies ever created, and it’s my enormous honor to serve as its chairman,” he said Thursday. “I was very honored when they asked me to do it. We had an idea to do (it), and then they came, they said, ‘Would you be the chairman?’

“I take it very seriously,” he added before a number of speakers, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s own son-in-law and global envoy Jared Kushner, who both praised his vision for a new world order.

“This is a board of action, just like President Trump is a president of action,” said Rubio, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Oftentimes in international affairs, we often find ourselves at events where people are reading these scripted statements, these strongly worded letters that they put out, but no action — nothing happens.”

Kushner, who served in Trump’s first administration, has remained in the private sector this time, only to be called in by his father-in-law to help negotiate on the Ukraine-Russia and Gaza-Israel conflicts. That arrangement has drawn the ire of Democrats concerned that the Miami businessman is lining his family’s pockets — but it provides Kushner some diplomatic flexibility.

And he made clear Thursday he has been using it, saying the Gaza ceasefire plan — however tenuous — was a model for Trump 2.0’s new vision for the world order.

“I’ll just talk to people in the media and on social media, which is this deal only happened because we worked with Israel, we worked with Turkey, we worked with Qatar, we worked with Saudi, we worked with Egypt. I mean, everyone worked together. We worked with U.A.E. We all worked together to make this happen,” Kushner said. “I see a lot of people trying to escalate, you know, criticizing Israel or Israelis, criticizing Turkey or Qatar. Just calm down for 30 days. I think that the war is over. Let’s do our best to try working together.”

But “together” does not necessarily mean with America’s longtime European allies.

A list of initial Board of Peace members released Thursday by the White House included no major European powers. France and others have warned that the board could undermine the United Nations and other existing global entities.

The White House list included: Bahrain, Morocco, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Mongolia, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan. Belgium was on the list, until White House officials removed the name before Trump departed the summit.

‘Changing period’

As Trump spoke Thursday, he delivered shout-outs and admiration for India, Pakistan, Cambodia and Thailand. Other atta-boys came for Kosovo and Serbia, for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and for Israel, Egypt and Ethiopia.

But zero kudos were extended to Europe.

During what the White dubbed as his “special address” on Wednesday, Trump made no efforts to hide his desire to pry the United States from its traditional allies.

“The explosion of prosperity and conclusion and progress that built the West did not come from our tax codes. It ultimately came from our very special culture. This is the precious inheritance that America and Europe have in common,” Trump said.

“We share it, but we have to keep it strong. We have to become stronger, more successful and more prosperous than ever,” he added. “We have to defend that culture and rediscover the spirit that lifted the West from the depths of the Dark Ages to the pinnacle of human achievement. We live in an incredible, changing period.”

Trump made clear in Davos that he is driving that change — and doesn’t plan to let up, with three years left in his second term. European leaders made clear they are preparing for life without the United States.

“It’s as well a shift towards a world without rules. Where international law is trampled underfoot and where the only laws that seems to matter is that of the strongest. And imperial ambitions are resurfacing,” French President Emmanuel Macron told the Forum on Tuesday, taking a dig at Trump’s stated desire to take over Greenland despite Danish objections. “This is as well (a) shift towards a world without effective collective governance, and where multilateralism is weakened by powers that obstruct it or turn away from it, and rules are undermined.”

Macron used his address to urge his European partners to embrace Trump’s distancing by “building new approaches.”

“And it’s clearly building more economic sovereignty and strategic economy, especially for the Europeans,” he said, “which, for me, is the core answer.”