{"id":424115,"date":"2026-01-21T18:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/424115\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T18:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:19:10","slug":"trump-steps-up-demand-to-annex-greenland-but-rules-out-using-force-davos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/424115\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump steps up demand to annex Greenland but rules out using force | Davos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has stepped up his demand to annex Greenland<\/a> in an extraordinary speech in Davos, but said the US would not use force to seize what he called the \u201cbig, beautiful piece of ice\u201d.<\/p>\n

Addressing thousands of business and political leaders at the World Economic Form in the Swiss ski resort<\/a>, the US president said he was \u201cseeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to use force. I won\u2019t use force. All the US is asking for is a place called Greenland,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

Referring to the US record in the second world war as a justification for his demand, Trump told the global audience: \u201cWithout us, now you\u2019d all be speaking German, or a little Japanese perhaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Denmark<\/a> had been overrun by Germany \u201cafter just six hours of fighting\u201d, prompting the US to intervene \u201cat great cost and expense\u201d. He insisted that only the US was now fit to defend \u201cthis enormous, unsecured island\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump said: \u201cYou need the ownership to defend it. You can\u2019t defend it on a lease. Who the hell wants to defend a licence agreement, or a lease?\u201d<\/p>\n

At several points Trump appeared to confuse Greenland with Iceland, claiming \u201cIceland\u201d had caused a drop in stock prices on Tuesday \u2013 when markets fell as a result of his threat to impose new tariffs<\/a> on eight European countries.<\/p>\n

Handing over Greenland to the US would not represent a threat to Nato<\/a>, he said, praising its \u201cexcellent secretary general\u201d and greeting Mark Rutte in the audience.<\/p>\n

But Trump repeatedly returned to his argument that the US has had a raw deal from Nato, funding the protection of other European countries. \u201cWe give so much, and we get so little in return.\u201d<\/p>\n

He suggested that while the US was ready to defend Nato allies, this backing might not be returned. \u201cWe\u2019re there for Nato 100%. I\u2019m not sure if they\u2019d be there for us.\u201d Mutual defence is a founding principle of the transatlantic alliance.<\/p>\n

In a rambling speech, the president also claimed to have delivered a historic economic upturn at home, and rejected the idea of what he called the \u201cnew green scam\u201d, of switching from fossil fuels to clean energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want Europe to do great, I want UK to do great; they\u2019re sitting on one of the greatest energy sources in the world and they don\u2019t use it,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are windmills all over Europe, there are windmills all over the place, and they are losers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He reeled off a list of what he said were US economic achievements over the first 12 months of his second term. These included what he called \u201cvirtually no inflation\u201d, falling petrol prices, and rapid economic growth.<\/p>\n

The president claimed that under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, \u201cwe were a dead country. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump arrived late in Switzerland on Wednesday, after an electrical fault on Air Force One<\/a> forced him to switch planes, but cleared his diary to address the high-powered gathering on time.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s threat at the weekend to slap punitive tariffs on eight European countries<\/a> blamed for blocking his claim to Greenland has dominated discussions in Davos this week.<\/p>\n

Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, used his Davos speech on Tuesday<\/a> to warn mid-sized countries to unite in the face of US \u201ccoercion\u201d. \u201cMiddle powers must act together, because if we\u2019re not at the table, we\u2019re on the menu,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trump took direct aim at Carney in his speech, claiming that Canada had had \u201ca lot of freebies\u201d from the US. \u201cCanada lives because of the US: remember that, Mark, next time you make your statements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carney was just one of a string of targets in the speech, which lasted well over an hour. These included Switzerland, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the outgoing Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, and the Somali-born congresswoman Ilhan Omar.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Trump said he had a \u201cvery good relationship with [Russia\u2019s] President [Vladimir] Putin and President Xi [Jinping of China].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has stepped up his demand to annex Greenland in an extraordinary speech in Davos, but said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-424115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}