DAVOS, Switzerland—U.S. President Donald Trump’s Greenland fiasco has done Europe an unintended favor. His erratic bullying has forced European leaders to recognize that they need independence from an unreliable America—and to break with their own moribund economic and security policies.

Trump monopolized the headlines at the World Economic Forum here this week, threatening a Greenland invasion and then backing down, giving him the media dominance he craves. But the deeper conversation was something different—an open European rebellion against Trump and a bracing dose of honesty at a gathering where polite avoidance has been an operating principle. Europeans this week stopped pretending that their economies will revive if they keep slipstreaming behind America, the global hegemon.

DAVOS, Switzerland—U.S. President Donald Trump’s Greenland fiasco has done Europe an unintended favor. His erratic bullying has forced European leaders to recognize that they need independence from an unreliable America—and to break with their own moribund economic and security policies.

Trump monopolized the headlines at the World Economic Forum here this week, threatening a Greenland invasion and then backing down, giving him the media dominance he craves. But the deeper conversation was something different—an open European rebellion against Trump and a bracing dose of honesty at a gathering where polite avoidance has been an operating principle. Europeans this week stopped pretending that their economies will revive if they keep slipstreaming behind America, the global hegemon.

Europe’s stagnation has been a background theme of nearly every Davos conference I’ve attended for 25 years. Changing that status quo was hard, while following America’s........

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