Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at how Europe is responding to escalating tensions over Greenland, the growing mandate of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” and the approval of a new Chinese embassy in London.
Texts, Threats, and Tariffs
U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that there is “no going back” on his threats to take over Greenland. The comment follows a flurry of drama over the weekend, starting with Trump’s announcement that a group of seven NATO countries that have expressed solidarity with Denmark, as well as Denmark itself, would be subject to a 10 percent tariff starting on Feb. 1, with an increase to 25 percent if a deal for a U.S. purchase of Greenland is not reached by June 1.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at how Europe is responding to escalating tensions over Greenland, the growing mandate of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” and the approval of a new Chinese embassy in London.
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Texts, Threats, and Tariffs
U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that there is “no going back” on his threats to take over Greenland. The comment follows a flurry of drama over the weekend, starting with Trump’s announcement that a group of seven NATO countries that have expressed solidarity with Denmark, as well as Denmark itself, would be subject to a 10 percent tariff starting on Feb. 1, with an increase to 25 percent if a deal for a U.S. purchase of Greenland is not reached by June 1.
The European Union convened an emergency meeting on Sunday, producing a joint statement from the targeted countries—Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland—asserting their continued solidarity and commitment to the principles of “sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Following outrage from Europe, Trump then turned to a rather nontraditional form of diplomacy: publicly sharing private text messages with global leaders. Trump first posted screenshots revealing Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store’s pleas for de-escalation, followed by screenshots of Trump’s response. “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace,” Trump’s message reads. (The Norwegian government does not choose the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, though that decision is made by a committee whose members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament.)
Trump also posted a message from French President Emmanuel Macron in which the French leader expresses confusion over Trump’s goals in Greenland; offers to set up a G-7 meeting in Paris on Thursday after the leaders attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland; and invites Trump to have dinner with him in Paris before heading home to the United States. Trump’s post, meanwhile, came a day after he threatened to impose a 200 percent tariff on French wine if Macron did not agree to join Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace.”
Although Macron did not directly mention Trump in his speech at Davos on Tuesday, some of the French leader’s remarks were evidently delivered with Trump in mind. Macron pushed back against unilateralism and emphasized Europe’s collective strength. “Faced with the brutalization of the world, France and Europe must defend an effective multilateralism,” he said. “We do prefer respect to bullies. We do prefer science to plotism [conspiracy theories], and we do prefer the rule of law to brutality,” Macron added.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney similarly stressed coalition building in his address, as did European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who added that Europe clearly “needs to adjust to a new security architecture.”
Trump is set to speak at the forum on Wednesday.
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What We’re Following
Support and skepticism. According to CBS News sources, more than 10 countries so far have signed on to join Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace,” out of the more than four dozen that have reportedly been invited. However, only five have made their agreement public: the United Arab Emirates, Belarus, Morocco, Hungary, and Canada (although Canadian Prime Minister Carney has not agreed to pay the $1 billion fee proposed by Trump as the required contribution to become a permanent member).
According to Trump’s vision, the board—which Trump is to chair—will be composed of world leaders and tasked to pursue the end of various global conflicts.
According to reports, Trump wants the board’s signing ceremony to take place at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday. Chief concerns for world leaders considering the proposal include the selection of countries invited—Russia and China are on the list—and the board’s potential threat to the authority of the United Nations.
The board was first conceived as a postwar transitional body for Gaza following the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, and it was formally backed by the U.N. Security Council in November 2025 as a “transitional administration with international legal personality that will set the framework, and coordinate funding for, the redevelopment of Gaza pursuant to the Comprehensive Plan.”
The board’s proposed charter, which was released on Friday, reveals a mandate of far greater scope that would allow Trump to name his own successor and authorize “resolutions or other directives” to implement the board’s mission. Notably, the charter makes no mention of Gaza, where the cease-fire remains tenuous: On Tuesday, Israeli authorities ordered dozens of families from their homes in the first forced evacuation since the cease-fire began.
Still, two subcommittees that are expected to report to Trump’s board were established last week to carry out his Gaza plan, and Carney has emphasized that Canada’s involvement hinges on conditions in the enclave. “We still do not have unimpeded aid flows, humanitarian aid flows at scale to the people in Gaza,” Carney said. “That is a precondition for moving forward on this.”
A new embassy. On Tuesday, the British government approved plans for a new Chinese embassy near the Tower of London after years of delays. The proposal is still subject to numerous legal challenges, but if built, the embassy would be Beijing’s largest in Europe and replace the seven locations currently used by Chinese diplomats in the capital city.
The approval comes despite warnings from local residents, Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters, and British and U.S. politicians across the political spectrum that Chinese officials could use the embassy to spy on British citizens and companies as well as exiled Chinese dissidents. Opponents of the plan cite the building’s proximity to fiber optic cables carrying sensitive data as a particular cause for concern.
In a joint letter released on Tuesday, British intelligence officials Ken McCallum and Anne Keast-Butler addressed those worries, citing the creation of a package of mitigations to deal with a “wide range” of national security issues, including cables. Still, they wrote, “as with any foreign embassy on UK soil, it is not realistic to expect to be able wholly to eliminate each and every potential risk.”
Some analysts see the security gamble as a sign of changing calculations for the West, citing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s goal to revive Britain’s economy by improving relations with China and boosting foreign investment. The decision also seems to remove a barrier to Starmer’s potential visit to China later this month, which would be the first visit by a British leader since 2018.
Odds and Ends
An online petition appealing for Denmark to “Danify California” by purchasing it from the United States has amassed more than 286,000 signatures. The petition was created in early 2025 following Trump’s initial demands to buy Greenland; now, as Trump escalates threats to take over the territory, support seems to be surging again. The petition’s organizer, Xavier Dutoit, said in a recent interview that the campaign’s intention was “purely to make a point about how absurd Trump’s claims to Greenland really were.”
The petition points out that Trump has never really liked California anyway and would surely be willing to part with it for the right price—which would include a lifetime supply of Danish pastries to sweeten the deal.
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