Francis Fukuyama on Trump’s Bullying and Europe’s Response

Conversations with Bill Kristol

Government, News, Politics, Society & Culture

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🗓️ 22 January 2026

⏱️ 62 minutes

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Summary

“The Europeans have been in this alliance [NATO] to protect themselves, largely from Russia and other aggressors. And now it has an aggressor within the gates, so to speak. And that’s quite an extraordinary situation.” So argues the eminent political thinker Francis Fukuyama, who begins with his assessment of Trump’s bullying of Denmark and Western Europe in recent days. In a thought-provoking tour d’horizon Conversation, Fukuyama shares his perspective not only on Greenland but on a world in crisis more generally, covering Ukraine, Europe, China, Japan, as well as developments in the United States. As he puts it, in bracing terms: “Trump is doing the same thing domestically that he’s doing internationally. He’s trying to erode all the existing constraints on his ability to use power.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, welcome to conversations. Bill Crystal here. Very pleased to be joined today. What is today,
0:19.9	Wednesday, January 21st. I have to say the day
0:22.8	now in the era of Trump, because, you know, God knows how much will change. By Frank Fukuyama,
0:28.2	who needs no introduction, a professor now at Stanford, author of many important books and articles.
0:34.3	Most recently, the book, liberalism had its discontents, which I highly recommend.
0:39.1	Well, we could talk about liberalism, and we should at some point more broadly, but I think
0:44.0	in the world crisis that we're seeing unfold, we should finally discuss geopolitics and what
0:49.8	the situation is with the U.S. and the world, if that's okay, Frank.
0:54.2	Sure. Good. So the world, if that's okay, Frank. Sure.
0:55.5	Good. So, today is Wednesday. President spoke at Davos this morning. We don't need to get
1:00.6	into the weeds, I guess, of every little zig-and-zag. But, I mean, what is your take
1:05.1	basically on the situation with Trump, Greenland, Denmark, NATO, that whole thing?
1:12.0	Well, there's so many different things that you could say about this.
1:17.3	In terms of geopolitics and world order, the United States has not simply dropped out of the kind
1:26.2	of traditional supportive roles for that liberal order that we've come to expect.
1:31.3	It's actually turned into an aggressive force.
1:35.3	We've kind of openly embraced naked imperialism, territorial conquest for the sake of exploiting the resources on that territory and then keeping it for
1:46.7	ourselves and so the Europeans are in this very weird situation where they've been in this alliance to
1:53.2	protect themselves largely from Russia and other aggressors and now it's got an aggressor within the gates, so to speak. And that's quite an
2:04.0	extraordinary situation. And I think, you know, they're all scratching their heads as to how to
2:09.3	deal with it. Do you think they're, I mean, I think they have been scratching their heads. I kind of
2:15.0	have the sense this week they might be saying, okay, if this is the new world, we really have to, they're still scratching their heads, but it's not easy to deal with it. But the question about the U.S. and U.S. reliability, and is this just a little weirdness from Trump's part, the fact that it's gone, he's been able to push it so far without much opposition here and it's and putting on threatening tariffs on
	...

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