Last week, Denmark.

This week, Canada.

Donald Trump goes to war, rhetorically, with America's next door neighbor and largest trading partner, disinviting Prime Minister Mark Carney from his new board of peace.

Why does the president go out of his way to embarrass America's friends?

Is Trump bored of peace?

He seems to be, at least when it comes to our traditional allies.

Next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

Let's acknowledge that Donald Trump's blunt attempts to get European nations to spend more on their own defense is good for Europe, good for America, and good for us taxpayers.

Let's also state the obvious.

If you are interested in preserving Canada's independence and the independence of the free nations of Europe, you would build your militaries the way America has built its military.

But there are ways that allies talk to each other, even when they disagree.

And Donald Trump's way is not the usual way these things are done.

For instance, his offensive comments about NATO's contribution to the war effort in Afghanistan and which more than a thousand European soldiers died do nothing except alienate America's friends and by the way insult the American and European soldiers who fought side by side in countless battles over many years.

The question is how much damage is he doing?

Joining me to discuss all this, Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent at the New York Times.

Leanne Caldwell is the chief Washington correspondent at Puck.

Steven Hayes is the editor of The Dispatch and Adris Khoon is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Thank you all for being here.

I know that myself I would rather talk about the snowstorm that's coming, but we're going to talk about the state of the world instead because I don't have the weather equipment behind me.

I just have an inaccurate picture of the White House still.

Um the um Adrius, let me start let me start with you.

But before we we before I ask you anything, I want you to listen to a little bit of what the Canadian prime minister said at Davos.

Let's listen to that.

If great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate.

Heggeimons cannot continually monetize their relationships.

Okay, you're an economics reporter.

Can hegeimons continually monetize their relationship?

Answer that one second.

The first question is is what does this mean?

Everybody is talking about Carney's speech in which he talked about a rupture in the Western Alliance as a rupture itself.

This is the moment when everything kind of burst out.

It was called a galvanizing moment at Davos.

We can make jokes about that later, but but give us the context and give us the the the the importance of that moment.

I I think what what Carney did was he he took the mask off.

He he one of the most important things that he said in that speech was that the rules-based international order hadn't really worked as intended.

uh but Canada went along with it that they knew that America sort of didn't abide by the rules all the time but they they adhered to it large and largely enough that that it was worthwhile for middle- inome countries to uh go along with with rules and now what Carney has said both in this speech and in his trip to China when he met with Xiinping is that there's a new world order um and if Donald Trump wants to act like the hedgemen in North America, China in in uh Asia, Russia in Europe, then countries like have to pivot and they have to deal with the multipolar world as it exists.

Um, and he he had he had a lot of good good lines for economists, you know, compl complimentarities or positive some.

He's a central banker.

Central bankers seem to be the only people who are really good at standing up to Donald Trump in this country and in Canada.

That's interesting.

We're waiting to see what the Mexican central banker does.

Peter, um, Trump was surprised and upset a little about this.

Actually, there's an interesting um we have a little montage to show you about their very unusual kind of slow motion interaction.

Why don't we watch that for a second?

I want you to talk about it.

We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

I watched your prime minister yesterday.

He wasn't so grateful, but they should be grateful to us.

Canada lives because of the United States.

Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.

But Canada doesn't live because of the United States.

Canada thrives because we are Canadian.

Now, there was a certain, you know, nice bottle of maple syrup you got there, Mark.

Hate to see anything happen to it.

Quality to Donald Trump's laconic but threatening posture.

Um, but what does what does this out andout rupture mean for the relationship?

We I mean they're our biggest trading partner among other things and we share the longest border in the world, longest peaceful border in the world.

Where are we in US Canada relations?

Well, if Donald Trump gets his way, there will be no border.

It'll simply be another part of the United States.

And he demonstrated that online with a map that he shows in an artificial intelligence created image of of a US flag over the US, over what is currently Canada, over what is currently Greenland, over what is currently Venezuela, as if to demonstrate that he intends to be the imperial power of the Western Hemisphere.

And you can see why Canada might not take that as much of a joke.

It's not very funny to them.

And Carney, I think, you know, to to to's point, has pulled it off the mask is a good way to put it.

I think this is the week when our allies discovered that that um flattery and uh you know appeasement only go so far, right?

Why did Donald Trump reverse course on Greenland?

It's very likely that he reverses course because he saw that it wasn't going to happen, right?

That for the first time maybe in his five years in the White House, Europe and Canada and all these countries said, "No, no, that's not happening.

That's a red line here.

we're not going to try to pretend that this is a reasonable, rational policy of trying to take over an allies territory.

And and he and that had effect on the bond markets and ultimately he went from uh within a few hours saying I must have it all to hey, you know, we'll see what happens.

Let's go back in time a full week ago to when we were going to conquer Greenland, not Canada.

And by the way, remember Venezuela?

Yeah, that was crazy.

Um and remember Epstein before Venezuela?

That was also very interesting.

Uh but go back to Greenland.

Um is the crisis diffused, Steve?

I mean I mean he's so murial that it might just come pop back out next week, right?

I mean look, he had said as recently as Wednesday that he the United States needed to control Greenland and that the strong implication was that we needed to take it.

However, he very deliberately did not rule out the use of force and multiple times suggested that we would be using force to take it because we needed it.

Of course, Greenland was not mentioned in the 33-page national security strategy of the United States, but Trump threatened tariffs on allies on the the supposition that not having Greenland constituted a national security emergency.

I mean, this we haven't had Greenland for centuries, but not having Greenland now constituted a national security urgency.

I mean, look, his arguments about Greenland have been farcical, I think, for a long time and people have understood them as far until such point as they can't afford to.

They don't Europeans and our allies and Canadians.

They can't afford to have the seriously literally debate that people here in the United States does.

They have to take him seriously and literally.

And they did.

You know, it's interesting you mentioned that because Mike Johnson uh said this week that, you know, we take him, you should take him seriously, but not always literally.

This was in the course of explaining, you know, that he understands why he Trump wants Greenland, but you know, we're not going to have a war.

And Lean, I always I I I always ask you the same question.

It's really Groundhog Day.

But when when are they going to in Congress going to say uh no like stop doing this?

There's literally no it's very hard to find a positive reason to alienate Canada.

Like and there are a lot of Republican senators who understand that.

Give us a sense inside the Senate Republican caucus just for starters and we could go to Mike Johnson.

give us a sense of are you seeing any to borrow a word from Canada ruptures?

Yeah.

Well, um you get sick of asking me the question.

I kind of write this different version of the same thing all the time.

But I will say with the Greenland situation, um, when I was talking to Republicans on Capitol Hill, this was really the first time in the second Trump administration that I I got a lot of anger privately, of course, from House Republicans.

This was a red line for them as any sort of military invasion.

If if Denmark came with open arms and said, "Name your price," yes, that is a whole different story.

Um but uh there was a lot of back channeling with the administration uh to let them know that not only is this not going that it's not going to be approved, Congress isn't going to support it.

Um that he is actually hurting their midterm chances because this is something that is absolutely unpopular with voters who are like why are we talking about it?

Um but they were afraid to say anything publicly.

They did.

This tells you everything you need to know, right?

And that's the answer.

Right.

Which which which means that they were hoping that this back channeling and this subtle conversation with the president and his team would would get them to the right place.

Was it this back channeling or was it the market dip on the fear that Trump was about to go attack a treaty ally Idris?

I I think I think it was the stock market going down.

I think it was uh 10 year 30 yields going up.

Mortgage rates are going to go up as a result of that.

It was also the Europeans saying very clearly for probably the first time uh that no this this will not stand.

Uh you know if you look at what's happened over the course of the last year the Europeans accepted a pretty not nice trade deal.

They basically accepted that America would be tariffing their goods and they weren't going to retaliate and they I think have seen the limits of appeasement.

I think that that that channel was probably very important.

Um I think the Republican push back you know it's been it's been real.

That's how a lot of the nominees have gotten pulled.

they don't they don't sort of get pulled with a public denunciation but this private back channel you do see that and it does exist but you know if it's the president and he really really wants to do it ultimately I think the Republicans in Congress cave that's at least what what's happened well listen to this listen to this uh statement made by Senator Eric Schmidt of Missouri um who is a stalwart Trump supporter he said u about Greenland Europe can't protect it the Danes can't protect it that's just an obvious fact at this point and so it is in the strategic interest of the United States of America to pursue this.

How many people believe that?

Who say it?

And you know, I it it's hard hard to know what's in people's hearts, but you have people literally a year ago if you went to every senator and said, "Name the top 100 issues facing the United States."

Literally, nobody would put Greenland on the top 100.

No.

No.

It's people like Eric Schmidt.

It's people like, you know, Bernie Marino.

It's uh um Oh my gosh, Ted Cruz.

Ted Cruz.

Um yeah, so there's a there's a group of them who will do anything that the president says and it will be okay.

Um they think that what he says is great and and gospel, you know, but there is a very slim majority in the House of Representatives.

The House has it's down to like 218 to 214.

Yeah, there's a two seat majority right now.

Um and you know the House has been more in lock step as a whole than the Senate.

But uh you know Don Bacon of course he's retiring.

He's one of the few that speaks up.

But he said he told me he said look invading an ally who we have a treaty with is a high crime and misdemeanor.

Um and so he said that he has talked to other Republicans about impeachment if that were to be the case.

you know, all of this is bluster right now.

Um, but it really did rattle um members that this was the path that they were worried that he was just crazy enough to go down.

So, the interesting thing, Peter, is that is that he does seem the president does seem somewhat sensitive to the bridge too far aspect of this.

Is that fair?

Well, look, there are a number of instances in the last few weeks we've seen him go out there and make extravagant threats and then to back off, right?

He said he was sending the army or the military or the National Guard into Minneapolis.

And then JD Vance said this week, "Well, we don't really need to invoke the insurrection act.

It's going to be okay."

He said he was going to bomb Iran, right, if they killed protesters.

Well, they killed protesters.

They killed thousands of protesters.

He did not bomb Iran.

I'm not saying he should or shouldn't have.

I'm just saying that he said he would and then he didn't.

Similarly, on Greenland, he was going to tariff Europe.

He might use military force.

suddenly he backs off.

And I think that it's it's lending itself to this feeling that that Leanne sort of alluded to here, used the word crazy.

There is this feeling in Washington among Republicans as as well as Democrats that, you know, is he off the rails here and and it's hard to know when he is because he seems always to be erratic and mercurial and volatile.

But is there a point where it's going so far that you have a guy in the White House with ultimate power because he seized it um all over the place?

And yeah, it'd be weird.

It would be weird if Republicans suddenly discovered that the guy who lied about an election and instigated a soft coup was too crazy to conduct.

But but I think this has been an interesting week in the sense that oh like don't mess with Greenland turns out to be the closest thing.

But I don't think so.

I don't agree with that.

I mean, I we got some of the same reactions that Leanne got in talking to people on Capitol Hill as well, but like that's a clarifying moment.

You're talking about invading a NATO territory of a NATO ally.

They're declaring it a red line.

They're really angry privately, but they won't say it public.

I mean, come on.

That's not back.

But I think it has much more to do with these other external factors that he's responding to.

I mean, he has to just assume at this point that Republicans are going to support him regardless of what he does, no matter how crazy it is.

Leon, you were going to say, "Yeah, I was just going to say the public the public justification among Republicans was, look, this is just Donald Trump.

This is bluster.

This is a negotiating tactic."

And uh that is what they hid behind.

Um and you know, you're right.

It's Congress has dispelled most of its authority and power, given it away to this administration over and over again.

Speaker Mike Johnson has led that and allowed that.

Um there is some rank and file frustration among Republicans over that fact, too.

But um they aren't going to do anything about it, it seems.

Yeah.

No, I mean Adri, I I want to ask you this um because we have you and and you're an expert.

It's the sort of question that um wouldn't even imagine asking a year ago.

U but what what would be the long-term consequences of a a semi-permanent hostility between Canada and the United States economically for starters?

I mean they're massive trading partners with each other.

Um so it would hurt the Canadians more because they're more dependent on us than we are on them.

Uh but it would hurt us as well.

I mean the fact that Carney took away the tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles gives a avenue for those vehicles to get into America because a lot of vehicles travel uh up and down the border.

Um but there are all sorts of consequences as well uh for this rupture between between the two.

The fact that you have a our closest trading partner now triangulating coordinating with China, Qatar, other other countries like that that's not a situation that America wanted to be in.

um you know it is going to in the pursuit of uh maintaining kind of hemispheric control and asserting rights over Greenland and Venezuela it's going to lose a lot from probably its most important ally in in North America and that that's um that that's quite something.

I mean the fact that Mark Carney would even say things like this.

I mean that's I think why so many the the reception of his speech was so was so potent um that he called out also his European counterparts in saying that you've gone too far in accommodating this.

You have to stand stand up and Trump will Trump stopped saying the 51st state thing after Carney took over.

He didn't respect Trudeau and he kept saying it.

Now that Carney came he went to the White House.

He showed a bit of spine.

Trump backed off and I think that Carney knows that.

I mean, we're actually seeing something that is very seldom seen in nature, an angry Canadian, right?

We don't know the the the the true latent power, right?

It's it's it's it's fascinating to watch.

Steve, step back and and talk about America's alliances in Europe first.

You know, so on a scale of 1 to 10, one being Churchill and FDR and 10 being we're invade, we're militarily invading Greenland.

Where are we in the in the health of the postWorld War II European order?

I mean, nine and a half.

You think it's that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Look, do you remember?

That's bad.

Remember January of 2003, Donald Rumsfeld made an offhand remark in which he referred to France and Germany as old Europe.

That created weeksl long diplomatic row that threatened the diplomacy on the leadup to the Iraq war.

There was so much chinstroking and European anger about that.

And now Donald Trump is just shrugging off the deaths of soldiers of Allied soldiers.

Yeah.

in the wars that we ask them to fight with us.

He's belittling their leaders again and again and again.

He's forcing them to take steps that require them to go beyond just thinking about sort of theoretically what the relationship with the United States is to making alternative plans.

I mean, that's what that's what we saw this week is this is no longer theoretical.

They're not waiting around.

They're creating additional alliances.

They're going elsewhere.

Peter, I'm not going to let the the statement that he made about NATO troops go by without extensive comment.

Um, I mean, you've seen it, we've all seen it.

We should take another look at it.

Uh, because it's quite extraordinary.

It ranks up there with the to me in in my mind, it ranks up there in the u normbbreaking power of his comments 10 years ago about John McCain's war record.

Just listen again to this.

I'm sure you've all heard it.

They'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that.

And they did.

They stayed a little back little off the front lines, but uh we uh we've been very good to Europe and to many other countries.

Yeah.

Uh it's worth remembering that the NATO alliance is a a mutual defense pact.

It's not an offensive alliance.

It's a defensive alliance.

And the only time in its history, article 5, which is the article that says one attack on one is attack on all, was ever invoked, was on our behalf after 9/11, NATO said, "We are on your side.

We are with you.

You have been attacked.

You are our ally.

We are with you."

They've we they've never invoked it.

We've never actually had to go on had to go to them in a combat situation when they were attacked.

They came to our assistance after 911.

Now, look, you know, they were not uh the main forces in Afghanistan, Iraq.

Sure.

But proportionately for countries like Denmark, more than a thousand troops, a lot of troops died.

And when and and when and they didn't have to.

They didn't have to come.

They did.

They came because America is their friend.

And and they came in proportion to some of these smaller countries like Denmark, that may not be a lot for America, but for Denmark, a lot of people died.

And it and it had lived large in their politics because they didn't, you know, they had to leadership had to defend these decisions against a public that wasn't necessarily sure it wanted to be there.

Another line in Trump's speech that I thought was even more shocking than that was when he was talking about NATO and he said, "We would be we will be there for them, but I'm not sure if they'll be here for us."

And literally an inversion of what Peter just described.

And you you know, there was a bipartisan congressional Kodell.

Of course, the bipartisan members were Lisa Marowski and Tom Tillis, the two Republicans who are willing to stand up against the to the president sometimes.

Um and on their Kodell over the weekend to Denmark, they visited the memorial where the Danish soldiers died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And so um it was just counter that statement was absolutely the opposite of what has actually happened.

Let's remember, by the way, what has Trump actually said about Article 5 defending Europe?

He said during the campaign, if these guys don't pay up, Russia, do whatever the hell you want with them.

His line, not mine.

Russia do whatever the hell you want with it.

So, article 5 he has made clear is to him uh you know conditional and not actually an absolute uh uh commitment by the United States to its allies that that had for the last 75 80 years.

In the couple of minutes we have left, let's turn to what could be next week's preoccupation.

Uh Iran.

Um large number of American ships heading toward the Gulf.

you have a different signals coming out from the White House at various points, but the Israelis now according to their rep their reporting uh are are believing that Trump is getting ready to do a massive strike on Iran.

Do you have any sense of that, Steve, and and what why he would do it now?

Yeah, I think certainly looking at um the preparations you're describing leads one to conclude that that's that at least wants that as a live option.

Look, I think depending on who you talk to, if you talk to some military officials, they will tell you that we weren't in a position to have done this weeks ago, in part because of what we were doing in Venezuela, but we were otherwise committed.

And in order to do the kinds of things that he wants to do, and remember, Donald Trump cares as much about anything as looking tough, looking going big, looking tough, showing strength.

Um, we will soon be in a position to do that.

Idris, uh, help us understand something that Trump is more a man of impulses than ideologies and a lot of people around him try to create ideologies out of these impulses.

But what do you think that actually his inclinations are of essentially a 19th century imperialist?

Um, I you know that he wants territorial expansion, he wants tariffs, he looks a lot like a McKinley sort of president.

Um but this this is the opposite of what people have tried to come up with ideas ideologies of what America first actually means.

Uh in the first administration it was something that was a lot more isolationist.

Uh and what we see now is that you know people like JD Vance who really steeped in the kind of ideology uh propelling Trumpism.

You know they said we don't want forever wars.

There's no reason to get entangled in in these kinds of disputes.

They're now having to defend the president as he does regime change in Venezuela, as he strikes Iran maybe for the second time.

Um, you know, it's tough for them.

You know, it's very much it's like the Rubio foreign policy is most advanced one, right?

Peter, 10 seconds.

If he had gotten the Nobel Peace Prize, would we be involved in all of this?

He did give it to Maria Machado gave it if he got it from the people who made it.

Well, he made the point that that was somehow enough for him to stop being uh concerned about peace.

He said that himself and so we take him at his word.

Well, we're going to have to leave it there, but not for the last time we'll be talking about this.

I want to thank our guests for joining me and thank you at home for watching us.

For more about the sacrifices made by our allies while fighting alongside Americans in Afghanistan, please visit theatlantic.com.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Washington.