FILE – California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom urged European lawmakers to stand up to president Trump” and “have a backbone.”
California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a strong message to global leaders on Tuesday, urging them to take a stand against President Donald Trump.
“People are rolling over. I should have brought a bunch of kneepads for all the world leaders,” Newsom told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “It’s just pathetic.”
Newsom made reference to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado regifting her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump during a visit to the White House last week and said the behavior around the President is “embarrassing.”
The Democratic Governor—who is a long-time adversary of Trump’s—urged European lawmakers to “stop being complicit” and “have a backbone.” Newsom’s comments come amid tense international discussions after Trump threatened to tariff European allies until Denmark agrees to sell Greenland to the U.S.
“The Europeans should decide for themselves what to do, but one thing they can’t do is what they’ve been doing. They’ve been played. This guy [Trump] is playing folks for fools,” said Newsom, referring to Trump as a “T-Rex.”
You either “mate with him or he devours you,” he quipped.
Amid mounting backlash from European leaders, Trump revealed he is set to meet with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and others at Davos, although he warned there is “no going back” on his plan.
Trump has also refused to rule out the possibility of leaving NATO in order to carry out his Greenland ambitions. Should the President pursue that avenue, the legalities involved are, at best, murky, experts told TIME. Trump declared on Tuesday that “no person or President” has done more for NATO than himself. “If I didn’t come along, there would be no NATO right now! It would have been in the ash heap of history,” he claimed.
This isn’t the first time Trump has clashed with NATO or E.U. officials since returning to the White House.
Trump has often criticized European allies over discussions about Russia. Following a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing in September, during which Ukrainian allies committed security guarantees to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump cited concerns with European purchases of Russian oil, a White House official told TIME. The President insisted European leaders must put more economic pressure on China, arguing that Beijing funds Russia’s war efforts.
There have also been repeated clashes over tariffs—a matter that has come to the forefront once more following Trump’s most recent threat.
Europe responds to Trump at Davos
As the world looks to Europe to make its next move, president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, during a speech in Davos on Tuesday, championed “European independence” and said Europe is the right place to invest.
Concluding her address, von der Leyen made reference to the escalating row over Greenland and Trump’s insistence that the U.S. must acquire it as a matter of “national security.”
“When it comes to the security of the Arctic region, Europe is fully committed. And we share the objectives of the United States in this regard,” said von der Leyen, noting that Finland recently completed a sale of icebreaker vessels to the U.S., the first deal of its kind.
When French President Emmanuel Macron took to the Davos stage some time later, he echoed von der Leyen’s statements about the strength of Europe, calling it a “good place.”
But Macron took his defence of Europe a step further and appeared to follow Newsom’s playbook by calling out Trump’s trade strategy.
“We do prefer respect to bullies, we do prefer science to politicism, and we do prefer rule of law to brutality,” he said.
Macron—who wore sunglasses throughout his speech, reportedly due to a burst blood vessel in his eye—went on to warn world leaders, saying “conflict has become normalized” and the current state of geopolitics is one in which “the only law that seems to matter is that of the strongest.”
“This is a shift towards a world without effective collective governance,” said Macron. “It’s clearly a very concerning time, because we are killing the structure where we can fix the situation and the common challenges we have without collective governance.”
On international trade, the French President took aim directly at the U.S., describing Trump’s policies as ones that “undermine our [European] export interests, demand maximum concessions and openly aim to weaken and subordinate Europe, combined with an endless accumulation of new tariffs that are fundamentally unacceptable.”
Macron said that industries in Europe, such as chemical and automotive sectors, “are being literally killed by the lack of respect for a normal framework and [a] level playing field.”
Time
