January 23, 2026 — In this week’s episode of Around the World, hosts Dhruva Jaishankar and Rachel Rizzo are joined by Garima Mohan, Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, to discuss the growing momentum in EU-India relations ahead of an upcoming summit and potential trade agreement. Dhruva and Rachel also dig into the latest developments between Trump and Greenland, as well as the sudden resurrection of the U.K.–Mauritius Chagos Islands deal.
Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Image: FellowNeko, via Shutterstock.
Image: 111176. PM meeting the President of the European Commission, Ms. Ursula Von Der Leyen, in New Delhi on April 25, 2022. Courtesy of the Government of India Press Information Bureau, via pib.gov.in.
Image: Copernicus Sentinel-2 data 2021, ESA / CNES, via Wikimedia Commons.
SNEAK PEAK
Rachel Rizzo: On this week's episode.
Rachel Rizzo: I think you said two words there that perfectly encapsulate what is going on here. And those two words are and yet. The Europeans are increasing their defense spending and yet. They are coming to the table when Trump threatens tariffs and yet. They are sending troops and showing that they will better defend Greenland if that is what Trump is looking for and yet.
Garima Mohan: And next week is really momentous because we have EU Commission President von der Leyen as chief guest for India's Republic Day, followed by the EU-India summit on the 27th of January, where we are expecting no less than 113, 114 takeaways. The biggest of them are, of course, the long elusive free trade agreement, which I think we are very close to signing. An advanced security and defense partnership between the EU and India, of the sort the EU has with Japan, South Korea, Norway, so a really important list of partners.
Dhruva Jaishankar: This has been a sort of become a campaign issue for Nigel Farage. And reform UK, is sort of the right-wing opposition in the UK, which is gaining ground politically And they're seeking to turn this return of the Chagos Islands into an election issue in Britain. This is threatening to reopen a can of worms on a very tricky issue that many people had thought was resolved and has somehow survived changes in government in the UK, Mauritius and the United States.
Welcome to Around the World
Dhruva Jaishankar: Hi, I'm Dhruva Jaishankar.
Rachel Rizzo: And I'm Rachel Rizzo. Welcome to the Around the World podcast. Your essential guide to understanding the forces shaping our world today. Every week, we cut through the noise to bring you clear, insightful analysis of the most important developments in geopolitics.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Whether it's security challenges across Europe, power dynamics in Asia, domestic updates from the United States, or regional updates in Latin America or the Middle East, we make sure you're up to speed on what's happening and more importantly, why it matters.
Rachel Rizzo: Thanks for tuning in. And also be sure to like and subscribe to the Around the World podcast on both Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Hello, Rachel.
Rachel Rizzo: Hey Dhruva. How’s it going?
Dhruva Jaishankar: Good, good. Like every week, think every week this year, I've been thinking it's going to be a slow week and we can go into more depth on a particular issue,
Rachel Rizzo: No.
The Pursuit for Greenland Continues
Dhruva Jaishankar: But events seem to seem to take precedence over everything else. But this week, this past weekend, I can tell you on Saturday, felt like something, this January 17th, it felt like something fundamentally cracked in transatlantic relations. And Trump posted on Truth Social that on February 1st, eight European countries, which are all sending troops to Greenland, will be charged a 10% tariff that will become 25 % tariff on June 1st.
Rachel Rizzo: Yeah.
Dhruva Jaishankar: And I, to be honest, even I was taken aback by the response by many of my European friends and colleagues who, some of whom are, have been like real votaries and committed transatlantic partners have said, you know, Europe needs to find a way to work with Trump. But even from any of these European backers of the US alliance, there's been a really strong response. We've seen that in the last couple of days in Davos and Trump has him backed out. And he's actually today, the day of our recording, he's actually speaking in Davos. So Rachel, what's going on with Greenland and tariffs and the transatlantic relationship?
Rachel Rizzo: You know, it's always such a hard question to answer what's going on with Greenland because it changes by the day. But first I would say a couple things. Look, I mean, we've talked about this before. The Greenland idea isn't new, but it's a renewed interest in this administration. And people always say that we should take Trump seriously, but not literally. And when it comes to Greenland, I say take him literally because he is hell bent on finding a way to acquire this island and people and he's says it through the lens of the US needing it for national security reasons. The US is the only country that could defend Greenland. But there are also other issues at play here. The idea of whether critical minerals are accessible on the island at some point. aren't now. Whether the melting of ice in the Arctic means that shipping lanes will become accessible for longer stretches throughout the year and what that means for US access, but also access for Russia and China. So there's a lot here. But what I would say is that as we are doing this recording, we're doing this on Wednesday, we'll release it on Friday, he's giving his Davos speech now.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Mm-hmm.
Rachel Rizzo: It might have just ended. And we were wondering if he was going to talk about Greenland and he did. And he basically said, he had kind of hearkened it back to World War II and the United States defending Greenland, winning World II and kindly returning the island to the Danes. He also said, which I think everyone was hoping to hear, that he would not use force to acquire the island. Now, of course, he said we could and we would win. No one could defend it, but he won't do that. So in terms of what happens now, he wants direct and immediate negotiations with the Europeans. However, the Europeans are also holding a pretty firm line here. So what happens next I think is still really anyone's guess, but I think we're in for a pretty difficult time in the transonic relationship.
Dhruva Jaishankar: But a quick thing, what precipitated this, right? We had eight European countries, it's four Nordic countries minus Iceland, Germany, France, UK, and Netherlands, sending what was pretty small groups of small military units, I think the UK even sent just one officer to Greenland, right? That is what precipitated Trump's ire, right? Yeah.
Rachel Rizzo: Yeah. It was. And they sent those troops, as the secretary general of NATO said, sort of under the guise of looking at the region, doing sort of a situational recon, because Trump has talked so much about Russia and China in that region and the threats both of those countries pose to Greenland, sort of sending NATO troops there to look and see what actually is happening. But also, I think, what could end up happening there is short of acquiring Greenland, which Trump has really backed himself into a corner here saying that anything less than that is unacceptable. I think we could see some broader mill to mill cooperation through the lens of NATO in response to Trump saying that this is a national security threat. But I think there's also a question on how the EU decides to respond to Trump's threat of tariffs, as you mentioned, 10 % on these eight countries February 1st, potentially 25 % in June. Whether or not the EU will invoke this trade bazooka that could send this into a real escalatory spiral, I think those are the things that we're gonna be watching over the coming, maybe even days here, depending on when negotiations get started.
Dhruva Jaishankar: But I feel like there's almost like a real sense of betrayal on the part of many Europeans. There was a feeling that there, I think, a couple of things. One, they were doing something that Trump was criticizing them for not doing, which is reinforcing the security of Greenland. And instead of a positive response, they get slapped with tariffs that, at least in some of those countries, with the UK particularly, they felt that some of this had been settled already. And this, again, one of the few relationships that had been reasonably stable, you know, think there's a feeling that the Labour government in the UK had done everything to accommodate Trump. And yet there was, you know, there's been this response, right? So just explain a little bit, like, what is the response in Europe? Because we've heard some pretty extraordinary statements coming out of Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, the Belgian Prime Minister yesterday in Davos, you know, described like, you know, we're not slaves. But there really has been a very visceral response on the part of many Europeans to this development.
Rachel Rizzo: Mm-hmm. I think you said two words there that perfectly encapsulate what is going on here. And those two words are and yet. The Europeans are increasing their defense spending and yet. They are coming to the table when Trump threatens tariffs and yet. They are sending troops and showing that they will better defend Greenland if that is what Trump is looking for and yet. So I think it really shows that you know, this idea of multilateralism, this idea of allies and NATO especially as like a sense of mutual defense doesn't necessarily play with this administration. It's very much as the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney said, an era of might makes right, an era of renewed great power rivalry. And while I do think that the president, the US president certainly sees Greenland as important, I do think there's an aspect of this that's just like he wants a big island
Dhruva Jaishankar: Mm-hmm.
Rachel Rizzo: And he wants to be able to say that this thing that the United States has tried to do for so long, know, Harry Truman secretly offered Denmark $100 million for it and they said no and that only became public years later. So I think for him being able to say that he's the one that got this done is a big aspect of this entire conversation. And I think we also have to keep that in mind that it goes deeper than just security, minerals, shipping. It gets to the heart of who Donald Trump is as a person and as a president.