Newsom torches Trump at Davos after being blocked from event: "Fight fire with fire"
Davos, Switzerland - California Governor Gavin Newsom accused President Donald Trump of wrecking decades of post-World War II alliances, saying the US had "become unrecognizable in a matter of months".
It came a day after Newsom urged European leaders to "develop a backbone" and "push back very aggressively" on Trump's bid to take over Greenland.
"It's a remarkable thing to break down 80-plus years of alliances," Newsom said in an address to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.
"It takes decades and decades to build trust and organizations," he said. "It takes weeks, tweets, hours, minutes, sometimes, to destroy it."
"Destruction is not strength. The Trump administration is weakness disguised as strength," the 58-year-old insisting, adding: "We decided the only way to address Trump is quite literally to fight fire with fire."
The remarks came after Newsom was blocked from speaking at an event organized at the US delegation's official Davos HQ, allegedly at the White House's request.
Trump has rocked NATO and Europe with his bid to seize Greenland, threatening to slap tariffs on countries that opposed the move.
On Wednesday, he appeared to partially row back on his strong hints at seizing the Arctic island by force and dropped the tariffs, instead announcing a vague deal aimed at ensuring Greenland's security.
Newsom also accused the Trump administration of attacking rights and freedoms in the US, where a mass deportation program has roiled communities all over the country.
Calling out the "authoritarian tendencies", he said: "There's no rule of law. It's the rule of Don."
"We could lose our republic as we know it. Our country has become unrecognizable in a matter of months, not just years," the Democrat warned.
Still, Newsom suggested that US relations with the world could still be repaired.
"There's always going back," he said. "I think these relationships are in dormancy. They're not dead."
Cover photo: REUTERS