Trump's Whirlwind Day: Greenland Summit, Leaked Macron Text, and Global Taunts

U.S. President Donald Trump posted overnight that he’d spoken to NATO chief Mark Rutte, agreed to a meeting in Davos with key players on Greenland — then leaked an apparent text message from French President Emmanuel Macron, shared a map of the Western Hemisphere showing Canada (and Venezuela) as American, and berated Britain for ceding a military base in the Indian Ocean. And breathe. “I had a very good telephone call with Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, concerning Greenland,” Trump wrote. “I agreed to a meeting of the various parties in Davos, Switzerland. As I expressed to everyone, very plainly, Greenland is imperative for National and World Security. There can be no going back — On that, everyone agrees!” Trump has stepped up his threats to seize Greenland in recent days, announcing he will impose 10 percent tariffs on eight European countries that have mobilized to try and block the U.S. president’s extraterritorial ambitions. The tariff announcement has triggered an ongoing scramble among European leaders to come up with a response to Trump. Macron, in a text message that Trump screenshotted on social media, purportedly wrote to the U.S. leader: “My friend, We are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran. I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland. “Let us try to build great things,” Macron added, as he tried to win over Trump. “i can set up a g7 meeting after Davos in Paris on thursday afternoon. I can invite the ukrainians, the danish, the syrians and the russians in the margins. let us have a dinner together in Paris together on thursday before you go back to the us. Emmanuel.” A French official close to Macron confirmed the message was authentic. In another indication of how the American president and his MAGA allies are stepping up chatter about pursuing supremacy over the entire Western Hemisphere, Trump then shared a fake map — featured in the background of a genuine photo from a European leaders’ dash to Washington in August to talk Ukraine — that showed Canada, Greenland and Venezuela all under the U.S. flag.