The West stepped back from the brink. But Europe’s distrust of America lingers.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. DAVOS, Switzerland—The West avoided an open rupture this week. But, instead of celebrating, European leaders are bracing for more serious shocks to the trans-Atlantic relationship in the months ahead.

“We are not yet out of the woods," Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkēvičs said in an interview in Davos on Thursday, after President Trump U-turned on threats of military action and punitive tariffs to seize Greenland from Denmark. “Are we in an irreversible rift? No. But there is a clear and present danger.

If we want to preserve the alliance, both sides need to be very, very careful." The crisis over Greenland, though defused through a compromise negotiated by North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary-General Mark Rutte, already has many European leaders worrying about long-term damage. “We are in a much better place today than we were at the beginning of this week," Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in an interview Thursday. “But of course, the very fact that we are relieved that a NATO country is not going to attack another NATO country tells us that we are somewhere where we never thought we would be.

And that, in itself, will linger." Trump’s approach to Greenland has also prompted leaders in Europe and Canada to focus more on reducing their countries’ economic, technological and military dependence on the U.S., the kind of derisking previously reserved for China and Russia. Some European officials have started seriously worrying about the exposure of their economies to U.S. software, payment systems and communications platforms that could be switched off or disrupted in case of an escalating conflict.