Few would have begun to predict that President-elect Donald Trump’s desire to buy Greenland would be a hot topic this week.
Or President Trump’s insistence on taking back the Panama Canal and renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” Or continuing to refer to Canada as America’s “51st state” while threatening to impose 25% tariffs on its northern neighbor.
It may seem that President Trump is playing a prank on the world by making these proposals. But maybe not.
There is at least one prominent voice who thinks that perhaps there is a solution to his madness, some clear goals and some bedrock principles to guide it. That’s Michael Froman, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and President Barack Obama’s second U.S. trade representative.
“While President Trump is a master of unconventional approaches to foreign policy and diplomacy, this gets in the way of the fact that underlying his statements there is a grain of truth that we should take seriously. I think there is,” Froman said.
On this week’s episode of Playbook Deep Dive, Froman and Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels discuss the world situation President Trump is stepping into and how world leaders are reacting to his every word. We will talk about whether they are paying attention to and reacting to it, and what actions they think President Trump will take. He has an advantage over Biden in global hotspots like Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel and Greenland.
