British officials went to bed on Monday thinking they had averted a crisis. They woke up in the middle of an even deeper row over Greenland, tiny specks of rock in the Indian Ocean, and whether they should deploy their ultimate Trump card: King Charles.
Once again, President Donald Trump had upended everything with an early-hours Truth Social post.
It was all so different on Monday evening, when Secrets was chatting with sources. Crisis, the Brits believed, had been averted by the rational application of cool heads and a dose of logic.
A call from Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, to Trump had set things straight. It had all been a simple misunderstanding.
The European troops sent to the rocky island were not there as an expeditionary force to lay claim to the territory and defend it from U.S. interests, Starmer explained over the weekend. It was, in fact, the first step in making good on a commitment to do exactly what Trump wanted.
So the French contingent that arrived in the capital, Nuuk, over the weekend was part of a recce. Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the U.K. were all involved in scoping out how NATO could better defend the strategic island against growing Russian and Chinese activity in the North Atlantic.
Trump had seen a red flag. The threat of sanctions followed, risking a rift in NATO.
Cue phone call from Starmer. He has been something of a Trump whisperer, deploying charm, flattery and an invitation from King Charles to get his way. He was the first foreign leader to secure a trade deal last year, for example.
On Monday, it looked as if it had worked again. Reports surfaced that the president told the prime minister during the call that he may have gotten “bad information” on the troop deployments.
The Brits quietly briefed that things were going in the right direction and urged their European counterparts not to panic. “Keep calm and carry on,” was the message, just so long as French President Emmanuel Macron could keep his trade “bazooka,” and the threat of massive financial retaliation, in his pants.
The result is an intriguing test of how to handle this most irascible of presidents. Take Trump seriously but not literally, and sweet-talk him down from the ledge of wrecking the trans-Atlantic alliance, or fight might with might, unleashing the European Union’s full financial clout in a show of force that the president could not ignore.
The early verdict came in during the early hours of Tuesday. And it was not good for London.
Trump turned his fire on Starmer, slamming his decision to cede ownership of the Chagos Islands, a tiny archipelago in the Indian Ocean, which crucially includes the U.S. base at Diego Garcia.
Never mind that the deal to hand them to Mauritius lines up with international law and that it secures the base for a century.
And never mind that your Secrets scribe asked Trump about this on Air Force One a year ago. “It hasn’t been No. 1 on my list, I’ll be honest with you,” was his answer.
It was very much No. 1 on his list at 1:38 am. “Shockingly, our ‘brilliant’ NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER,” he posted.
It must have left British officials choking on their toast and marmalade.
They do still have one card up their sleeve. Trump may be prepared to slam the prime minister. Would he behave the same way to King Charles, for whom he clearly has a great deal of respect and with whom he bonded during the state visit to the U.K. last year?
Moreover, what if the king threatened to cancel his own state visit to Washington in April?
Starmer was asked twice about such a threat during an emergency news conference. Twice, he demurred.
“In relation to the King and other issues … I am focused on the pragmatic response here, not the suggestion of others, and my focus is what’s in the national interest for our country,” he said.
NEWSOM RANTS ABOUT EUROPEAN LEADERS ‘ROLLING OVER’ ON TRUMP: ‘HANDING OUT CROWNS’
The Nuuk game
We all know by now that the capital of Greenland is Nuuk. But look closely at those letters. There are no closed loops. None of its letters can be coloured in. You see what I’m saying — there are zero O’s or capital R’s with gaping holes that can be filled.
So which are the other four world capitals composed entirely of letters that cannot be colored in? There are no prizes, just a warm glow and a mention. You can send your answers to secrets @ washingtonexaminer.com.
Senator on senator
A politician has quietly written an interesting book. Perhaps because Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) recognizes that much of politics is absurd, he has managed to deliver 216 pages of witticisms, putdowns, and aphorisms, while dwelling only briefly on his policy successes and high-school prowess. (My NOLA pal tells me there is good reason for only a brief mention of his successes.)
Some of the highlights are pen portraits of colleagues, including his description of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), as, erm, unpredictable:
“Invite him to dinner, and you don’t know if he’ll sit down for an intelligent conversation or get drunk and vomit in the fish tank. But that’s why I like him.”
Lunchtime reading
“Bernie Sanders skipped every meeting for 18 years while serving on Holocaust Museum board” — “There are two large meetings every year where people fly in from all over the country for it. But Bernie Sanders couldn’t be bothered to walk across the road in D.C.,” said fellow board member Robert Garson, president of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.
Inside Bari Weiss’s Hostile Takeover of CBS News — “She was intoxicating, superficially conversant in a number of different directions, and she would name-drop adults of heft,” a former classmate who worked closely with Weiss said.
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