PARIS (AP) — While Europe is pushing back publicly against U.S. President Donald Trump over Greenland, the language appears softer behind the scenes.
Trump published a text message on Tuesday that he received from French President Emmanuel Macron, confirmed as genuine by Macron's office.
Starting with “My friend,” Macron’s tone was more deferential than the criticism that France and some of its European partner nations are openly voicing against Trump’s push to wrest Greenland from NATO ally Denmark.
Before broaching the Greenland dispute, Macron opted in his message to first talk about other issues where he and Trump seem roughly on the same page.
“We are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran,” the French leader wrote in English.
Then, he added: “I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland,” immediately followed by: “Let us try to build great things.”
That was the only mention that Macron made of the semi-autonomous Danish territory in the two sections of message that Trump published. It wasn't immediately clear from Trump's post when he received the message.
World leaders’ private messages to each other rarely make it verbatim into the public domain — enabling them to project one face publicly and another to each other.
But Trump — as is his wont across multiple domains — is casting traditions and diplomatic niceties to the wind and, in the process, lifting back the curtain on goings-on that usually aren't seen.
This week, a text message that Trump sent to Norway’s prime minister also became public, released by the Norwegian government and confirmed by the White House.
In it, Trump linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace," the message read.
It concluded, “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”
On Tuesday, Trump also published a flattering message from Mark Rutte, secretary general of NATO, which the alliance also confirmed as authentic.
“I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland,” Rutte wrote. “Can't wait to see you. Yours, Mark.”
Rutte has declined to speak publicly about Greenland despite growing concern about Trump’s threats to “acquire” the island and what that would mean for the territorial integrity of NATO ally Denmark. Pressed last week about Trump’s designs on Greenland and warnings from Denmark that any U.S. military action might mean the end of NATO, Rutte said: “I can never comment on that. That’s impossible in public.”
Macron likes to say that he can get Trump on the phone any time he wants. He proved it last September by making a show of calling up the president from a street in New York, to tell Trump that police officers were blocking him to let a VIP motorcade pass.
“Guess what? I’m waiting in the street because everything is frozen for you!” Macron said as cameras filmed the scene.
It's a safe bet that Macron must know by now — a year into Trump's second spell in office — that there's always a risk that a private message to Trump could be made public.
Macron said Tuesday that he had “no particular reaction” to the message's publication when a journalist asked him about it.
“I take responsibility for everything that I do. It's my habit to be coherent between what I say on the outside and what I do in a private manner. That's all."
Still, the difference between Macron’s public and private personas was striking.
Most remarkably, the French leader told Trump in his message that he would be willing to invite representatives from both Ukraine and Russia to a meeting later this week in Paris — an idea that Macron has not voiced publicly.
The Russians could be hosted “in the margins,” Macron suggested, hinting at the potential awkwardness of inviting Moscow representatives while France is also backing Ukraine with military and other support against Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion.
Macron wrote that the meeting could also include “the danish, the syrians” and the G7 nations — which include the United States.
The French president added: “let us have a dinner together in Paris together on thursday before you go back to the us."
He then signed off simply with “Emmanuel.”
Despite Macron's persistent efforts, in both of Trump's terms, not to ruffle his feathers, any payback has been mixed, at best.
Trump bristled on Monday, threatening punitive tariffs, when told that Macron has no plans to join Trump’s new Board of Peace that will supervise the next phase of the Gaza peace plan, despite receiving an invitation.
“Well, nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon," Trump told reporters, even through the French leader has more than a year left in office before the end of his second and last term in 2027.
"I’ll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes and he’ll join,” Trump said.
Lorne Cook in Brussels, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Kostya Manenkov in Davos contributed.
French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech as he visits the Istres military air force base, southern France, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Philippe Magoni, Pool)
FILE - President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Aug. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — For days it seemed there was no way out of the latest standoff between Europe and the United States: U.S. President Donald Trump insisted he must have Greenland — and would settle for nothing short of total ownership.
Even after he dropped the threat of force in a speech in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, the impasse remained. Enter: Mark Rutte.
The NATO secretary-general appears to have been instrumental in persuading Trump to scrap the threat of slapping punitive tariffs on eight European nations to press for U.S. control over Greenland — a stunning reversal shortly after insisting he wanted to get the island “including right, title and ownership.”
In a post on his social media site, Trump said he had agreed with Rutte on a “framework of a future deal” on Arctic security at the World Economic Forum in Davos, potentially defusing tensions that had far-reaching geopolitical implications.
Little is known about what the agreement entails — and Trump could change course again, but for now Rutte has earned his reputation as the “Trump Whisperer.”
That’s only the latest nickname for the man long known as “Teflon Mark” during his domination of Dutch politics for a dozen years.
Rutte's reputation for successfully charming the U.S. president took flight last year when he referred to Donald Trump as “daddy” during an alliance summit in The Hague and sent him a flattering text message.
Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said the dramatic scenes in Davos underscored Rutte's ability to keep NATO’s most powerful leader on board.
“I think Secretary-General Rutte has emerged as one of Europe’s most effective diplomats and Trump whisperers,” Kroenig said. “He does seem to have a way of speaking to Trump that keeps the United States and the Trump administration engaged in NATO in a constructive way.”
Rutte’s success in dealing with Trump appears to revolve around his willingness to use charm and flattery while revealing little of what the two leaders discuss. It's a tactic that Rutte used to marshal coalition partners in nearly 13 years as Dutch prime minister.
Trump himself highlighted Rutte's effusive friendliness before he set off for Davos this week, publishing a text message from the NATO chief on his Truth Social platform. In it, Rutte addresses “Mr. President, dear Donald” and praises Trump for his diplomacy in Syria, Gaza and Ukraine.
“I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland. Can't wait to see you. Yours, Mark,” the message ended.
Rutte became a poster boy for Dutch consensus politics while leading four often fractious ruling coalitions on his way to becoming the Netherlands’ longest-serving leader, surviving a number of domestic political scandals over the years and earning the nickname “Teflon Mark” because the fallout never seemed to stick to him for long.
The back cover of a 2016 book about Rutte by Dutch journalist Sheila Sitalsing, who followed him when he was prime minister, calls him “a phenomenon.”
“With indestructible cheerfulness he navigates the fragmented political landscape, recklessly forges the most extraordinary alliances and steadily works towards a new Netherlands,” it adds.
Rutte and his government resigned in 2021 to take responsibility for a child care allowance scandal in which thousands of parents were wrongly accused of fraud. But he bounced back to win national elections two months later with a slightly larger share of the vote and began his fourth and last term in office.
In another scandal that he survived, Rutte said in an interview that he couldn’t recall being informed about the Dutch bombing of Hawija that killed dozens of Iraqi civilians in 2015. In 2022, he survived a no-confidence motion in parliament in a debate about deleting messages from his old-school Nokia cell phone. Critics accused him of concealing state activity — but he insisted the messages just took up too much space in his phone.
Opposition lawmaker Attje Kuiken quipped: “It appears that the prime minister’s phone memory is used just as selectively as the prime minister’s own memory.”
His winning smile and enduring optimism, along with his habit of riding his bicycle to work while chomping on an apple seemed to help cement his popularity in the Netherlands, where such down-to-earth behavior is prized. When his last coalition collapsed in 2023 in a dispute over reining in migration, Rutte again leaned on that image, driving an old Saab station wagon to a royal palace to hand his resignation to King Willem-Alexander.
Just landing the NATO chief's job showed how adept Rutte is at navigating turbulent geopolitical waters. He managed to convince entrenched doubters, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to back his candidacy.
“It took a very long time. It’s a complicated process, but it’s an honor that it appears to have happened,” Rutte told reporters after securing all the support he needed to become secretary-general.
Rutte's soft diplomatic skills were seen as a key asset for the leader of the 32-nation alliance as it faced Trump's repeated criticism while navigating how to support Ukraine in war against Russia.
Several hours before Trump made his dramatic reversal on Greenland, Finnish President Alexander Stubb — another European leader credited with having a way with Trump — was asked during a panel discussion on European security in Davos “who or what can diffuse the tensions” over Greenland?
“Oh, Mark Rutte,” Stubb said, to laughter in the audience and among the panel that included the Dutchman himself.
Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Ali Swenson in Washington contributed.
President Donald Trump, right, meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte during a meeting on the sidelines of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte speaks during a meeting with President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte speaks during an Ukrainian Breakfast alongside the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
President Donald Trump, right, meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte during a meeting on the sidelines of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
