President Trump’s faith in his ability to wring concessions by taking maximalist positions was on full display this week. So were the costs, as he splintered NATO and then undercut his credibility by climbing down from his threats.

Even by President Trump’s own mercurial standards, his whipsawing over the past few weeks on Greenland — insisting on the largest land acquisition in American history and then dropping it without explanation, threatening allies and then reversing himself — was a remarkable and revealing exercise in a new era of American coercive diplomacy.

Mr. Trump began, as always, with a maximalist demand. This time, it was that a small European power, an ally that had shed blood for the United States in Afghanistan and beyond, turn over a vast and icy territory for the sake of U.S. national security. The president was clearly testing the boundaries of the Atlantic alliance, arguing that handing over the land was a small price for lesser powers to pay for continued American protection.

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But this week Mr. Trump also discovered the limits of his coercive powers. After he threatened a wave of new tariffs, markets fell abruptly, which always seizes his attention. Allies objected, this time openly. And by the time the president returned to Washington on Thursday night, it was clear that he had left considerable damage to the Western alliance in his wake.

MBFC
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