Trump berates Europe and threatens to seize ‘our’ Greenland: As it happened
US President Donald Trump has addressed leaders and business elites at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. Trump took the podium after threatening his European allies with tariffs following his vow to seize Greenland from Denmark “the easy way” or “the hard way.”
Trump has said he will impose a 10% tariff on “any and all goods” from eight European countries that deployed troops to Greenland last week, telling NBC News on Tuesday that he “will 100%” follow through on this threat. The US president maintains that American control of Greenland is vital for national security reasons.
Asked whether he would use military force to seize the Danish territory, he told NBC “no comment.”
THIS LIVE FEED HAS ENDED.
21 January 2026
15:22 GMTTrump brings up domestic issues throughout his speech, boasting about his economic and immigration policies. Now he’s turning to a favorite topic of his – the multibillion-dollar Somali fraud ring in Minnesota.
“Somalian bandits, can you believe that…they turned out to be higher IQ than we thought? I always say these are low IQ people,” he declares.
“They're good pirates, but we shoot them out of the water just like we shoot the drug boats out.”
- 15:11 GMT
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky will meet Trump in Davos on Thursday, a Ukrainian official tells Axios.
Zelensky initially canceled his trip to the summit, but Trump said during his speech that he would meet Zelensky “today,” prompting widespread speculation that the Ukrainian leader had changed his plans once more.
- 15:08 GMT
“The United States is keeping the whole world afloat,” Trump claims, referring to other countries’ trade surpluses with the US.
Their leaders in the room are avoiding him, he says: “They don’t want to stare me in the eyes.”
He adds “we’re not looking to destroy them,” just to correct trade imbalances.
- 14:58 GMT
Trump says he watched French President Emmanuel Macron’s speech “with those beautiful sunglasses… what the hell happened?”
He doesn’t seem bothered by Macron’s threats to impose retaliatory tariffs on US goods over the Greenland dispute. He recalls times he forced Macron to comply with his demands – for example on drug pricing – by threatening him with levies.
“You're going to do it fast. And if you don't, I'm putting a 25% tariff on everything that you sell into the United States and a 100% tariff on your wines and champagnes," Trump says, adding Macron's response:“No, no, Donald, I will do it.”
- 14:45 GMT
“And until the last few days, when I told them about Iceland, they loved me,” Trump says on NATO, seemingly confusing Iceland with Greenland.
“They called me Daddy, right, last time? Very smart man said, he's our daddy.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is still best known for calling Trump “daddy” last year. He’s no longer in Trump’s good books, however, with the US president now publicly doubting whether NATO would “be there for us if we gave them the call.”
- 14:36 GMT
Trump announces a surprise meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky “today.”
Zelensky said on Tuesday that he had canceled his planned trip to Davos, telling reporters that he would only attend if there would be fresh aid deals and a meeting with Trump on the agenda. Now, according to Trump, Zelensky "might be in the audience right now."
Trump also says that he is “in contact with President Putin, and he wants to make a deal.”
- 14:24 GMT
Trump’s selling his Greenland plan to the Europeans, claiming US ownership “would greatly enhance the security” of NATO.
“I’ve been a critic of NATO for many years,” he says. “You wouldn’t have NATO if I didn’t get involved,” he continues, referring to his demands that NATO members hike their defense spending to 5% of GDP, proportionally more than the US currently spends on its own military.
- 14:18 GMT
Trump says Greenland is “our territory.”
“This enormous unsecured island is actually part of North America. on the northern frontier of the Western Hemisphere,” he continues, adding that the US is “seeking immediate negotiations” to bring it under American ownership.
- 14:13 GMT
“Would you like me to say a few words on Greenland?”
Trump says he has “tremendous respect for the people of Greenland,” but adds the US should never have let Denmark keep control of the territory after World War II.
“How stupid were we to do that?...How ungrateful are they now?”
Trump says control of Greenland is a “core national security interest of the United States.”
- 14:03 GMT
Trump claims that his seizure and sale of Venezuelan oil is going to make Caracas “more money in the next six months than they’ve made in the last 20 years.”
The president is still taking a victory lap after abducting Nicolas Maduro, saying that “Venezuela has been an amazing place for so many years, but then they went bad with their policies.”
US oil companies, however, have expressed caution at returning to Venezuela. In a meeting with Trump earlier this month, Exxon's CEO Darren Woods said that the country is “uninvestable” for the time being.
