The morning after striking a deal with Donald Trump over Greenland that appeared to have eased the biggest crisis in transatlantic relations for decades, Mark Rutte was revelling in his now gold-plated reputation as Europe’s ultimate Trump whisperer.
“The president and I agreed to implement his vision — which I think is spot on,” the Nato secretary-general said on the sidelines of a breakfast event in Davos, where he was strikingly ebullient, even by his own famously breezy standards. “We had a very good discussion.”
Rutte’s private conversation with Trump not only saw the US president withdraw his threat to impose tariffs on Europeans and ease his rhetoric about conquering Greenland, but it appeared to come at a very low price: a promise to open talks on the future US presence on the Arctic island.