He denounced the European Union as “hostile” and “abusive” while threatening to ratchet up tariffs on some of its most famous goods by 200 percent. He openly mused about annexing Greenland while sitting in the Oval Office across from the head of the military alliance that would be called to defend it. He vowed to escalate a trade war with Canada while threatening its very right to exist as a sovereign nation.
But when it came to the authoritarian leader in Moscow, President Donald Trump boasted of his relationship with Vladimir Putin and declined to say that he would pressure his Russian counterpart to agree to concessions as part of a cease-fire deal with Ukraine. Trump’s sympathies seemed to lie with America’s foe over its friends, further unnerving already-whiplashed allies watching anxiously as the president’s handpicked envoy met with Putin at the Kremlin.
And that was all today—a day not unlike many in the early weeks of this new administration.
Trump’s proclamations underscored how quickly the new president has reoriented U.S. foreign policy and the nation’s global priorities. Old allies are now economic rivals. Friendly neighbors are territories to be seized. Authoritarians—not just Putin, but also the leaders of China and North Korea—are to be respected and, potentially, transformed into partners with whom to carve up spheres of influence.
The dizzying day began, as it so often does, with an early-morning social-media post.
Trump took to Truth Social to escalate his trade war with the European Union, vowing to impose 200 percent tariffs on European wine and champagne in a move that worsened anxiety among consumers on both sides of the Atlantic. He reacted angrily after the EU retaliated against a first wave of U.S. tariffs, with the bloc hitting back by levying 50 percent tariffs on imports of U.S. whiskey and other products. Trump deemed the tariffs “nasty.”
Trump wrote, “The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World [was] formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States.”
His claim was both untrue and adversarial. The EU, which has long prized good relations with the U.S., was acting in response to Trump’s initial tariffs, established the day before on goods such as aluminum and steel. EU leaders have made clear their hopes to do away with the tariffs but vowed to stand up for the continent by targeting politically sensitive goods in the U.S. in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive posture.
“We will not give in to threats,” Laurent Saint-Martin, France’s minister delegate for foreign trade, posted on X. He added that Trump “is escalating the trade war he chose to unleash.”
The tariffs were greeted with dismay by Americans who enjoy the continent’s wine—and by Wall Street, which took yet another trade-war tumble.
The markets were further buffeted by Trump’s insistence later in the day that he would not back down from an April 2 deadline to impose an additional 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods. The president has waffled on tariffs with America’s neighbor to the north, imposing one set on steel and aluminum earlier this week only to remove it hours later, but he declared in the Oval Office today that this time, he will follow through.
Trump has repeatedly misstated the size of Canada’s existing tariffs on U.S. dairy and lumber products and has wildly exaggerated the amount of fentanyl coming across the border. His broadsides against Canada have poisoned feelings toward the U.S. in Ottawa. “We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves,” the nation’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, said this week. Yet Trump has not stopped talking about adding Canada as his nation’s 51st state, his rhetoric escalating from taunt to threat, with many Canadians viewing it as an existential worry.
“We don’t need anything that they got. We [buy Canadian goods] because we want to be helpful, but it comes a point when you just can’t do that. You have to run your own country,” Trump said today. “And to be honest with you, Canada only works as a state.”
Trump delivered that ominous observation in his first meeting of his second term with Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general. Canada is a member of NATO, and an attempt to annex it by force would trigger the 75-year-old alliance’s mutual-defense pact, known as Article 5, which theoretically could pit the rest of the West against the United States. But Trump further poked at NATO by suggesting that he also has his eye on another piece of land—Greenland, a territory of Denmark—and hinting that he may even send troops there.
“We really need it for national security. I think that’s why NATO might have to get involved in a way, because we really need Greenland for national security,” Trump said. “You know, we have a couple of bases on Greenland already, and we have quite a few soldiers, and maybe you’ll see more and more soldiers.”
For years, Trump has lusted after Greenland, which is rich with minerals and sits in a strategic location in the North Atlantic. But Denmark has refused to discuss a transfer or sale, even as Greenland this week elected a party that favors gradual independence. Rutte chuckled while Trump discussed Greenland, drawing the ire of some Danish officials, including Rasmus Jarlov, the chairman of Denmark’s defense committee, who said that his nation does “not appreciate” Rutte “joking with Trump about Greenland like this. It would mean war between two NATO countries.”
But even as Trump delivered those threats, he pulled his punches with Putin. For weeks, he and his administration have aligned themselves with Moscow’s view of the war in Ukraine. Trump has declared that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is “a dictator,” that Ukraine started the conflict, that Ukraine would not be allowed to enter NATO, the alliance designed as a bulwark against Russian aggression. Trump belittled Zelensky in the Oval Office last month, and his now-lifted pause in U.S. intelligence sharing with and military supplies to Ukraine allowed Russia to gain territory on the battlefield. Even as Trump’s emissary Steve Witkoff traveled to the Kremlin to see if Russia would agree to the 30-day cease-fire proposal developed by the U.S. and Ukraine, the president declined to say today that he would push Putin to take the deal or to make any concessions.
“I don’t want to talk about leverage, because right now, we’re talking to them, and [the talks] were pretty positive,” Trump said. “I hope Russia is going to make the deal too, and I think once that deal happens … I don’t think they’re going back to shooting again. I think that leads to peace.”
Moments later, Trump went on to declare that he “got along very well with President Putin.” This time, Rutte didn’t laugh.