January 22 2026 - 1:01pm
Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and erratic behavior towards allies in Canada and the UK could lead to the cancellation of the British royal visit, according to foreign policy advisor John Bew.
Speaking to UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers, Bew — an advisor to each of the last four British prime ministers, Labour and Conservative — said that an American “desire for imperial grandeur” could result in a “full breach in the Nato alliance”.
He argued it was a “reasonable likelihood” that Trump’s foreign policy strategy could lead to “a complete fallout with the Brits, leading to cancellation of a royal visit”. He said there would be “utter despair from those who’ve been quieter and more constructive and have tried to work with the flow of the Trump administration”.
Speaking yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump appeared to rule out taking Greenland — which is Nato ally Denmark’s territory — by force. “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be frankly unstoppable,” he said. “But I won’t do that,” he added. The US President said he was “seeking immediate negotiations to acquire Greenland”, and later in the day hailed the agreement of a “framework” for a future deal, also backtracking on threats to impose tariffs on European countries which opposed his plans.
At Davos on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron gestured to Trump’s aims, saying that Europe would not bow to “bullies”, but admitted that Nato is a “weakened institution”. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised an “unflinching” response to Washington’s Greenland threats.
No longer in the No. 10 Policy Unit, Bew remains an advisor to the Labour government, having traveled abroad with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and helped to launch the Strategic Defense Review. Regarding the motives of Trump’s Greenland strategy, Bew told UnHerd that those driving the US national security strategy have a “very pre-1945 historical story” in their minds. Before the Second World War, Bew said, “it was very common for the US to buy, annex and acquire different territories.” The similarities, he added, were “quite striking”.
The foreign policy advisor stated that this US conception of strategy had created a disconnect with other Nato members. “So you have the rest of the Western alliance, very much focused on the post-1945 story,” he said, referring to the establishment of the international rules-based order in the form of treaties and international bodies. The US, Bew said, now has “no apparent desire to use any of the language, sensibility, norms of that post-45” settlement.
“Just 18 months ago, I was working very close to the Biden administration, who would assert the importance of these things after the first Trump administration,” Bew said. “It’s very disorienting for the key nodal point in the Western alliance to just scrap the shared discourse and language.” He added: “Maybe it was a myth we all bought into.”
