Europe, he says, is feeling this shift most acutely. Long-standing assumptions around collective security, free trade, and rule of law are being questioned, leaving allies unsure whether they can still rely on the US.
The controversy around Greenland has emerged as a flashpoint, raising uncomfortable questions about the future of NATO and the strength of the transatlantic alliance. For Bremmer, the issue is not just policy, but predictability—something markets, governments and allies increasingly lack.Beyond Europe, the ripple effects are global. From Venezuela’s oil ambitions to the war in Ukraine and China’s long-term strategic gains, Bremmer warns that the world is drifting into a “G-zero” environment—one without clear leadership or stable rules.
This is the edited excerpt of the interview.
Q: You had flagged a US political revolution and the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ as key global risks earlier. With President Trump back at Davos and those risks now looking even more amplified?
A: It is that way, and the United States is driving global uncertainty today. It’s not conflict in the Middle East. It’s not what Xi Jinping is up to. It’s what’s happening in the White House. Domestically, in the US, in a political system that’s much more divided and dysfunctional and internationally, in a global system where the United States is ripping up the old rules, whether it’s collective security or free trade or rule of law, all the things that the Europeans really need, all the things the Europeans rely on, and now, today, this week, they feel like they can’t get them from the United States.
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Q: Is it the end of NATO?
A: If Trump persists in requiring control of Greenland it is the end of NATO. If he does that. It’s very unpopular in the United States, it’s unnecessary for US National Security, the Denmark are a very close ally, or have been, and they are willing to provide whatever national security access the Americans need. But Trump has decided that’s not what he wants. What he wants is his name on the territory. And look historically, he has been very successful putting his brand on many things, on TV shows, on buildings, on the Kennedy Centre in Washington, DC, but on foreign territory is not one of them, and Denmark and the European allies strongly oppose this and Trump’s going to have to back down. If he doesn’t back down, he’s going to have a big fight in his hands, and he’s going to have the end of the Transatlantic Alliance.
Q: There’s no sign or indication of him backing down just yet. What do you expect the Europeans to say when they do meet with him here in Davos? We saw that joint statement coming in, and it was, as opposed to the commentary that came in the previous week – this has been a very different tone that Europe has taken now with this Greenland threat. What do you expect the Europeans to say to Trump here in Davos?
A: The conversation that the Danish and Greenland foreign ministers had with JD Vance, the Vice President, Marco Rubio, last week, were quite constructive, and the Danes explained the red line of sovereignty and territorial control, and the meeting did not break over that. They said, let us find a constructive way to move forward. That is not what we have heard from Trump. It’s not what we have heard from Stephen Miller. I mean, the question you are asking is how to predict what Trump is going to say on any given day? He’s a unilateralist, and his interests are not always aligned with those of the United States of America. That’s a problem.
The Americans have this core issue where they have elected somebody who frequently is more interested in his personal enrichment and his personal embellishment than he is in what’s good for the country. And the CEOs won’t say that, but I am not a CEO, so it doesn’t really matter. That’s a reality. And privately, everyone is concerned about this.
How can you find a way to assuage Trump’s ego, the way Nobel Prize winner Maria Machado did when she visited him for lunch and gave him her own Nobel. Thank you so much for helping us in Venezuela. What can the Europeans do? What are they willing to do to make Trump look like a winner, but also maintain control over Greenland, and is there a way to navigate that. If you were negotiating with Marco Rubio or JD Vance? No problem, but you are not the President of the United States is a different animal.
Q: You brought up Venezuela, nobody’s talking about Venezuela at all in Davos. It’s almost as if it never happened.
A: In the United States, people are talking about Venezuela every day. It is a big change in the Western Hemisphere. It puts a lot of pressure on Nicaragua, on Cuba, as countries that are adversarial to the US. It puts pressure on Mexico and Colombia, allies that aren’t doing enough from the US perspective on interdicting drugs, on dealing with the narco cartels. And of course, there’s the question of what’s going to happen with the world’s largest proven oil reserves. They aren’t US, not Saudi Arabia – Venezuela, and the Americans have said they are taking control of that oil, but the oil companies aren’t ready to invest. So how is that going to work out? All of these things are very big questions, and this is still getting news every day in the United States, I promise you.
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Q: It is getting news in the United States. I am saying that it’s probably not top of mind here in Davos, because Greenland is and that’s more topical and relevant to Europe. But what do you see as the next steps as far as the US strategy for Venezuela is concerned? You are right in pointing out that oil company CEOs are apprehensive about putting down top dollars at this point in time, given the uncertainty around the situation?
A: It would take a very long time to actually recoup those investments, as we saw from Darren Woods, the CEO of ExxonMobil, talking directly to Trump in the White House just over a week ago. We are talking about 100 billion necessary over 10 to 15 years to get Venezuela back to 3 million barrels of production a day, there have been about 600,000 barrels of production a day right now. That can happen with support from the World Bank. That can happen with proper investment and with proper governance structure. None of those things are certain today. And the thing is, if you are the CEO of an oil company, your expected timeline of investment is a lot longer than Trump has in office, so you can’t just rely on what President Trump is telling you. You have to think about what’s going to happen beyond that. That creates an asymmetry in the conversation, very different than the six months of planning that went into the very successful military operation to remove Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela.Q: What about Ukraine, again, no breakthrough. We were talking about it when we met last year. What’s the read now in Ukraine, in light of what is happening with Greenland?
A: The fact that the United States is demanding territorial control of Greenland, and that that is taking up most of the oxygen in Davos this year, means that the Russians don’t want to sit down and discuss anything on Ukraine. They can hope that American pressure on Europe breaks the NATO alliance, breaks the Transatlantic Alliance. And if that were to happen, support for Ukraine from the United States would probably go away. The Europeans are paying all the money, but the Americans are selling the weapons, and the Americans are providing the intelligence. So ultimately, that’s a big win for Putin. If you are Russia right now, even though you have lost a million soldiers, million casualties in this war, even though you are not taking very much land, it’s not going the way you want it to go the broader direction of Trump is very much aligned with what Putin wants to see strategically.
It’s good for him, it’s good for China. It’s bad for American allies so you keep fighting, you keep fighting, and you make life a lot worse. You increase the pressure on Ukraine. You increase the pressure on frontline European states, and you make the other European states, like Italy and like Spain, the Southern Europeans you make them wonder. Their publics wonder, why are we doing this? Why are we supporting the Ukrainians? Why are we going against the United States? That’s not a good idea for us.
Q: So, a breakthrough in 2026 or do you believe that this war is going to continue?
A: There is increasingly capitulation from Ukraine. The Ukrainians are now saying that they are willing to accept a demilitarised zone in some of the territory that they occupy. Their troops would pull back, even though they are not ready to renounce sovereignty, they are willing to talk about even holding elections while the war is still going on. Those are things that Zelenskyy, just a month ago, was not willing to consider because of the pressure from the US, from the Europeans, and the pressure from having to continue to fight Russia for almost four years now, they are a much weaker country, a much smaller economy, much smaller population. So, if there is going to be an end to the fighting, I fear it is because of Ukrainian capitulation, not because the Russians are the coming to the table, and they are accepting European, American, Ukrainian terms.
Q: If you are China today, what do you think Xi Jinping is thinking at this point in time?
A: Well, he just had a day with Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, that was a relationship that was considerably worse a year ago than it is today. Most of the reason for that is because of the breakdown in the US-Canada relationship. We are seeing India – Modi has stabilised his relationship with China to a significant degree. I think he would have done that anyway. But certainly, the fact that the US-India trade relationship still is not done, the Indians are feeling that the Americans are less reliable is a motivating factor to stabilise the relationship with China.
Long term, America’s tactical unilateralism is a benefit to the Chinese. America is the most powerful country in the world. It’s true, but a return to the law of the jungle does not work for America, because Trump is not the most powerful leader. Xi Jinping is, Xi Jinping does not have midterm elections in November. He doesn’t have to worry about term limits. He doesn’t have an independent judiciary.
He has a communist party that he has a monopoly of control over. Trump has none of those things. So long term, the ability of China to articulate a strategy and follow through on it and be reliable for other countries around the world is significantly greater than that of Trump’s United States. And of course, that is something the Chinese intend to profit from.
Q: Do you see a big reset even between Europe and China?
A: Not yet, but I think that if the Greenland crisis explodes and undermines the Transatlantic relationship to the point that it breaks, I think China will be a beneficiary in Europe as well.
Q: The odds of that happening, how high are they today as of today?
A: The odds of that happening today are maybe one in three. I think two weeks ago, they were maybe one in 10. But I think your level of confidence in those odds very low, and they are low because Trump has the ability to change his mind tomorrow. There was a period of time when Trump was talking about making Canada the 51st state. I never thought that was credible. He never had a military option on the table, but he stopped talking about it.
Trudeau was gone, Mark Carney came in. Trump said it a couple times, then Carney came back and he said, we will not accept this, and we don’t care what the costs are. Trump backed off. But the point is that the Europeans need to stand up to Trump on this issue. It’s easier for them to do because it’s not popular in the United States to vote loser. Red land and blue land a lot more popular in the US than Greenland is, so they need to back off.
But they only back off if the Europeans are seen as strong by the Americans. I mean, Trump has two different modes of foreign policy. He’s got the FAFO mode – fool around and find out which you get if you are Venezuela and Ukraine, he’s got the TACO mode – Trump always chickens out which you get if you are Russia or you are China. Right now, Trump believes that the Europeans are FAFO, and the Europeans need to convince Trump that they are TACO, and that is going to require both military response and economic response that is strong, unified and credible. We will see this week what we get.
Q: Retaliatory tariffs?
A: Certainly, that should be a component of that if the Europeans want to be treated credibly by the United States.
Q: Let me end by asking you, as we deal with the geo fragmentation, the geo economic confrontation, the spirit of dialogue clearly, as the World Economic Forum would like us to believe, that’s not evident. Do you see space for any kind of discussion or dialogue?
A: You have been talking to me about the geopolitics, and the geopolitics are in recession. It’s a G-zero world. It’s not a G7 it’s not a G20 it’s not a G2 as Trump said after meeting with Xi Jinping, not at all. But of course, the multinational corporations here, the big banks, the crypto companies, the AI companies, they are having a completely different Davos. And for there, the spirit of dialogue and investment and raising capital has never been stronger. Let us not forget that there’s a completely second Davos going on that has virtually nothing to do with all these concerns that you’re raising.
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