Donald J Trump is no political philosopher, nor would he have the slightest desire to be one. As Prof. Sheri Berman of Bard College New York quipped last year about Curtis Yarvin, Trump is no Carl Schmitt. Yet in relation to his obsessive desire to gain control of Greenland for the United States, however perversely, the 47th President somehow had seemed to capture the essence of what sovereignty means.
The first leaked outlines of the deal suggest that the US is insisting on sovereignty, not over the entirety of the island of Greenland but over the land on which they will base their military installations”
Readers will recall that, in one of his many utterances on the topic, Trump made it clear that leasing the territory of Greenland just wouldn’t do. He needed the US to own it. Only then would the US defend it. As we now know, while at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos earlier this month, Trump reversed course and seems to have settled for an ‘infinite’ leasing arrangement. As Eurointelligence has reported ‘The Greenland crisis isn’t over. The first leaked outlines of the deal suggest that the US is insisting on sovereignty, not over the entirety of the island of Greenland but over the land on which they will base their military installations. That’s still a red line for the Greenlanders and for Denmark.’
This volte face by Trump – another example of TACO ? – only goes to show how correct the authors of a new book entitled Shifting Sovereignties – A Global History of a Concept in Practice (De Gruyter, Berlin, 2025) were when they wrote that ‘Sovereignty as a phenomenon is not stagnant and immutable but constantly shifting. It has changed over time and found different expressions in different places as conceptions of sovereignty are shaped by different geopolitical and historical contexts.’
In mid-January I attended two events at the European University Institute in Florence that were based on this book, both featuring presentations by Prof Moritz Mihatsch of Wenzhou-Kean University in China, one of its two co-authors, the other being Michael Mulligan of the Euro-University of Bahrain. Before going into more detail, I would first like to recall an article that I myself wrote almost exactly four years ago.
The US view of sovereignty now closely resembles that of its supposed nemesis, Russia
Back in March 2022 I wrote a piece for EUideas entitled Sovereignty, power and global governance. At that time I referred to global governance as being ‘on the ropes’. Things have become far worse over the intervening period. Global governance – the idea of a ‘rules based international order’ – has hit the canvas, not far from being ‘down and out’ altogether. The historian Timothy Garton Ash has written that we have entered a new era: a post-western world of illiberal international disorder.
In this context, one development in particular absolutely leapt out at me – the way in which the United States – as regards how it approaches sovereignty – has moved much, much closer to the ‘model’ of the Russian Federation. It’s worth ‘getting into the weeds’ on this, because I really think America’s ‘regression’ is so noteworthy, not to say so regrettable. In the 2022 piece I cited the leading Bulgarian intellectual Ivan Krastev of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He had written fascinatingly about the Russian view of sovereignty. In the eyes of the Kremlin “sovereignty is not a right; its meaning is not a seat in the United Nations. For the Kremlin, sovereignty means capacity. It implies economic independence, military strength and cultural identity.” Russia believes in “power, unilateralism and the unrestricted pursuit of national interest”.
Does that not sound remarkably similar to the approach of the Trump 2.0 administration? And don’t just take my word for it. Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham, wrote in The Conversation only last week that ‘unilateralism is increasingly the hallmark of Trump’s second administration’.
Sovereignty for sale
Things just seem to be going from bad to worse. I mentioned Davos at the outset of this article and it was also the venue for the launch of Trump’s so-called ‘Board of Peace’. This strikes me as one of the most depressing developments on the world scene in a long time. It’s closely bound up with Trump’s loathsome ‘Gaza Plan’ announced in early 2025. Horrendous and unconscionable as that seemed at the time, it appears to be coming ever closer to realization. As reported by the Financial Times (FT) Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner gave a presentation at Davos promoting ‘amazing investment opportunities’ in Gaza without specifying where the money for reconstruction would come from, the FT reported.
The ‘Board of Peace’ sounds like one of the most Orwellian entities ever created. It has been described by the FT as ‘a nascent and idiosyncratic rival to the UN that has rattled Europe and delighted the autocracies seeking to ingratiate themselves in the US President’s new world order’. One hopes and prays that Ireland – and indeed the Vatican – will have nothing to do with it. At time of writing only two EU countries – Hungary and Bulgaria – have joined, though obviously that number could grow. It has been reported that permanent membership of the Board of Peace is on offer for $1 billion. Otherwise member countries will have to content themselves with a three-year term. What is this only a blatant case of ‘sovereignty for sale’?
Eurointelligence has written that ‘The Board for Peace (sic) is risky, not least because it ties its members to Trump after he is due to leave office in 2029, should he still be alive for long after that. It is clearly a mechanism for Trump to exert influence on international politics after he leaves office. That could land member countries in hot water with a future US administration.’
Back to the Florence lecture and master class
During the Q&A of the Max Weber lecture, an attendee made a point about corporate sovereignty, instancing (disapprovingly, I would say) the case of how much power Amazon has in the city of Seattle, referring to it having a private army. There was an irony here in that as well as the book itself I still had the Amazon cardboard wrapper in which I’d received it in Dublin just before Christmas. At the start of the second event Mihatsch recalled advice from a colleague of his that, too often, a master class is just a repetition of the original lecture. He didn’t let this happen, and tailored his remarks very well, also allowing those in attendance to say how sovereignty featured in their own research. A Professor in attendance expressed something like impatience about difficulty in obtaining the book. But I thought to myself: just order it on Amazon like I did!!
Michael Sanfey is a researcher at the Institute of Political Studies, UCP Lisbon.
Sovereignty on the skids: how Trump’s Greenland obsession reveals a deeper shift
Donald J Trump is no political philosopher, nor would he have the slightest desire to be one. As Prof. Sheri Berman of Bard College New York quipped last year about Curtis Yarvin, Trump is no Carl Schmitt. Yet in relation to his obsessive desire to gain control of Greenland for the United States, however perversely, the 47th President somehow had seemed to capture the essence of what sovereignty means.
Readers will recall that, in one of his many utterances on the topic, Trump made it clear that leasing the territory of Greenland just wouldn’t do. He needed the US to own it. Only then would the US defend it. As we now know, while at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos earlier this month, Trump reversed course and seems to have settled for an ‘infinite’ leasing arrangement. As Eurointelligence has reported ‘The Greenland crisis isn’t over. The first leaked outlines of the deal suggest that the US is insisting on sovereignty, not over the entirety of the island of Greenland but over the land on which they will base their military installations. That’s still a red line for the Greenlanders and for Denmark.’
This volte face by Trump – another example of TACO ? – only goes to show how correct the authors of a new book entitled Shifting Sovereignties – A Global History of a Concept in Practice (De Gruyter, Berlin, 2025) were when they wrote that ‘Sovereignty as a phenomenon is not stagnant and immutable but constantly shifting. It has changed over time and found different expressions in different places as conceptions of sovereignty are shaped by different geopolitical and historical contexts.’
In mid-January I attended two events at the European University Institute in Florence that were based on this book, both featuring presentations by Prof Moritz Mihatsch of Wenzhou-Kean University in China, one of its two co-authors, the other being Michael Mulligan of the Euro-University of Bahrain. Before going into more detail, I would first like to recall an article that I myself wrote almost exactly four years ago.
The US view of sovereignty now closely resembles that of its supposed nemesis, Russia
Back in March 2022 I wrote a piece for EUideas entitled Sovereignty, power and global governance. At that time I referred to global governance as being ‘on the ropes’. Things have become far worse over the intervening period. Global governance – the idea of a ‘rules based international order’ – has hit the canvas, not far from being ‘down and out’ altogether. The historian Timothy Garton Ash has written that we have entered a new era: a post-western world of illiberal international disorder.
In this context, one development in particular absolutely leapt out at me – the way in which the United States – as regards how it approaches sovereignty – has moved much, much closer to the ‘model’ of the Russian Federation. It’s worth ‘getting into the weeds’ on this, because I really think America’s ‘regression’ is so noteworthy, not to say so regrettable. In the 2022 piece I cited the leading Bulgarian intellectual Ivan Krastev of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He had written fascinatingly about the Russian view of sovereignty. In the eyes of the Kremlin “sovereignty is not a right; its meaning is not a seat in the United Nations. For the Kremlin, sovereignty means capacity. It implies economic independence, military strength and cultural identity.” Russia believes in “power, unilateralism and the unrestricted pursuit of national interest”.
Does that not sound remarkably similar to the approach of the Trump 2.0 administration? And don’t just take my word for it. Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham, wrote in The Conversation only last week that ‘unilateralism is increasingly the hallmark of Trump’s second administration’.
Sovereignty for sale
Things just seem to be going from bad to worse. I mentioned Davos at the outset of this article and it was also the venue for the launch of Trump’s so-called ‘Board of Peace’. This strikes me as one of the most depressing developments on the world scene in a long time. It’s closely bound up with Trump’s loathsome ‘Gaza Plan’ announced in early 2025. Horrendous and unconscionable as that seemed at the time, it appears to be coming ever closer to realization. As reported by the Financial Times (FT) Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner gave a presentation at Davos promoting ‘amazing investment opportunities’ in Gaza without specifying where the money for reconstruction would come from, the FT reported.
The ‘Board of Peace’ sounds like one of the most Orwellian entities ever created. It has been described by the FT as ‘a nascent and idiosyncratic rival to the UN that has rattled Europe and delighted the autocracies seeking to ingratiate themselves in the US President’s new world order’. One hopes and prays that Ireland – and indeed the Vatican – will have nothing to do with it. At time of writing only two EU countries – Hungary and Bulgaria – have joined, though obviously that number could grow. It has been reported that permanent membership of the Board of Peace is on offer for $1 billion. Otherwise member countries will have to content themselves with a three-year term. What is this only a blatant case of ‘sovereignty for sale’?
Eurointelligence has written that ‘The Board for Peace (sic) is risky, not least because it ties its members to Trump after he is due to leave office in 2029, should he still be alive for long after that. It is clearly a mechanism for Trump to exert influence on international politics after he leaves office. That could land member countries in hot water with a future US administration.’
Back to the Florence lecture and master class
During the Q&A of the Max Weber lecture, an attendee made a point about corporate sovereignty, instancing (disapprovingly, I would say) the case of how much power Amazon has in the city of Seattle, referring to it having a private army. There was an irony here in that as well as the book itself I still had the Amazon cardboard wrapper in which I’d received it in Dublin just before Christmas. At the start of the second event Mihatsch recalled advice from a colleague of his that, too often, a master class is just a repetition of the original lecture. He didn’t let this happen, and tailored his remarks very well, also allowing those in attendance to say how sovereignty featured in their own research. A Professor in attendance expressed something like impatience about difficulty in obtaining the book. But I thought to myself: just order it on Amazon like I did!!
Michael Sanfey is a researcher at the Institute of Political Studies, UCP Lisbon.
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