President Donald Trump’s every move – on social media, speaking to the press and in person – is facing more scrutiny than ever.
But it’s not just the public worried about his actions in Greenland, with NATO and more European leaders have dedicated a group 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 in the chat, which also features European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Whenever Trump does something worrying on an international scale, the group begins chatting.
A source familiar with the group told Politico: ‘When things start moving quickly, it’s hard to do the coordination, and this group [chat] is really effective. It tells you a lot about the personal relationships and how they matter.’
Most of the messages are about responding to his policy actions, rather 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 think I get along well with them. They always treat me well. They get a little rough when I’m not around, but when I’m around they treat me very nicely.
‘I like both of them, they’re both liberal. They’ve got to straighten out their countries. London has a lot of problems, Paris has a lot of problems.’
He named immigration and energy as 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 no doubt worried members of the group, many 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 in the Oval Office looking at a map on which Greenland, Canada and Venezuela were all covered in the US flag.
And he shared an image showing him, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio raising the flag on Greenland next to a sign proclaiming it as ‘US territory est. 2026’.
In a sign of international leaders’ efforts to persuade Trump back to more traditional diplomacy, the US president posted an image of a text message from France’s Emmanuel Macron offering to host an impromptu summit of G7 leaders in Paris on Thursday.
In the message, Macron said ‘I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland’.
He offered to set up a meeting of the G7, which includes the UK, alongside representatives from Denmark, Ukraine, Russia and Syria and also invited Trump to dinner in Paris.
Trump also published a message from Nato chief Mark Rutte saying: ‘I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland’ and promising to use media appearances in Davos to highlight the US president’s work on Syria, Ukraine and Gaza.
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