Cover Story: The true danger posed by Donald Trump

The Economist’s cover this week was devoted to Donald Trump’s plans for Greenland and their significance for the transatlantic alliance

Peer into The Economist’s decision-making processes with Edward Carr, our deputy editor, who explains how we select and design our front cover. Cover Story shares preliminary sketches and documents the (often spirited) debates that lead each week to a design seen by millions of people.

When dealing with Mr Trump, if you’re not wielding a club, then you’re the ball (AFP)

Our cover this week was devoted to Donald Trump’s plans for Greenland and their significance for the transatlantic alliance. I also have news of a competition for you to design your own Economist cover, but more on that later. We had been planning a cover on Greenland for a while. Little did we know that the president’s campaign to annex the island would explode this week into a five-bell emergency for nato. The whole business is surreal, because the ownership of Greenland is a prize of almost no strategic importance to America. Mr Trump argues, correctly, that Greenland will be a site for the “Golden Dome” missile-defence system. If the island is America’s, neither Russia nor China will dare strike it. But Greenland already has an American base to deter aggressors and it could build others without owning the island. The extra benefit from annexation is not worth the fuss.

We illustrated the absurdity with a white ball on white greens. When dealing with Mr Trump, if you’re not wielding a club, then you’re the ball. The Europeans had expected a diatribe in Davos. In the event, the president withdrew the threat of tariffs and ruled out taking Greenland by force. The Europeans got new talks and we needed a new idea.

Here is the face that launched a thousand ice-breakers. Despite Mr Trump’s attempt at conciliation this week, something in the relationship with Europe is bust. The president wrapped his retreat in a denunciation of nato, complaining that America has paid “100%” for it and never got anything in return. Calling on Denmark to give Greenland to America, the Don drawled that the Danes “have a choice. You can say yes and we will be very appreciative.” Mario Puzo pause. “Or you can say no and we will remember.”

Here is the menace contained in those words. Mr Trump’s complaints about his European allies are only the tip of the iceberg of anger and resentment.Hence this may be only a tactical retreat. Mr Trump has coveted Greenland for years. He is unlikely to change his view that allies are spongers and shared values are for suckers. He could even choose Greenland over nato, the Nuuklear option he had hinted at in an interview with the New York Times.

And here are those weedy Europeans, in their puffa jackets, swallowed up in the vast expanse of ice and snow. Mr Trump believes that America holds all the cards, because his European and Asian allies have more to lose from a rift than America does. He is partly right, but America stands to lose, too, as the financial markets seemed to register with their Tuesday jitters. Yet this was the wrong cover just when Europeans had at last stood up to Mr Trump successfully.

After his concession, this fetching design also felt wrong. The chances that America takes ownership of Greenland have fallen. Yet our cover still needed some menace. Mr Trump rarely changes his mind on things that matter to him, such as tariffs (beautiful) and wind power (bird graveyards). Greenland belongs in that company. Nobody should be surprised if transatlantic relations founder once again in the years to come.

Were America to annex Greenland, an obvious parallel would be Russia annexing Crimea in 2014. And that got us thinking. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s deluded, acquisitive president, famously rode through southern Siberia on horseback. How about putting Mr Trump astride a polar bear? And how about making the comparison unmissable by whipping off his shirt?It’s not so much shock and awe, as shocking.

I promised you a competition. Every week our designers bring The Economist’s lead editorial to life. We’d like you to put your own artistic skills to the test, by designing your own cover. Anybody can enter, so pass on these details to the budding designers among your friends and family.