{"id":256670,"date":"2026-01-21T20:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/256670\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T20:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:00:11","slug":"trump-steps-up-greenland-annexation-demand-and-attacks-european-leaders-at-davos-davos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/256670\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump steps up Greenland annexation demand and attacks European leaders at Davos | Davos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has stepped up his demand to annex Greenland<\/a> but said the US would not use force to seize it during a rambling, invective-laden speech at Davos where he once again lashed out at Europe\u2019s political leaders.<\/p>\n

The address to thousands of business and political leaders at the World Economic Form in the Swiss ski resort<\/a> indicated that while the US president was renouncing the use of military force \u2013 for now at least \u2013 to wrest control of Greenland, he still intended to wield America\u2019s economic and diplomatic power to bend European allies to his will.<\/p>\n

He 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

The remarks elicited a cool reaction from the foreign minister of Denmark<\/a>, the Nato country of which Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory. Lars L\u00f8kke Rasmussen said it was \u201cpositive\u201d that Trump had ruled out an invasion but the US president\u2019s ambitions for the territory were \u201cintact\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is, in isolation, positive that it is being said that military force will not be used, but that does not make the problem go away,\u201d Rasmussen said. \u201cThe challenge is still there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norway\u2019s finance minister and former Nato<\/a> secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, told CNN that Trump had delivered an \u201cimportant message\u2026 because up to now many were afraid that he actually was going to threaten to use force to acquire Greenland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later on Wednesday, Trump announced a U-turn on his plans to impose sanctions on eight European countries over Greenland due to progress in talks with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte. He said that in a bilateral meeting, he and Rutte had developed the \u201cframework of a future deal\u201d on Greenland and \u201cthe entire Arctic region\u201d that \u201cif consummated, will be a great [solution] for the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n

As a result, Trump wrote, he would not be imposing tariffs scheduled to go into effect on 1 Februrary. The US was set to impose 10% tariffs against Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland.<\/p>\n

Trump did not give further details of the agreement, although he said talks were ongoing concerning a US missile defence shield that would be in part based in Greenland. \u201cFurther information will be made available as discussions progress,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

During his earlier speech, Trump at times sought to needle his global audience, saying it was \u201cstupid\u201d for the US to cede Greenland to Denmark after the second world war, and that \u201cwithout us, now you\u2019d all be speaking German, or a little Japanese perhaps\u201d. Davos<\/a> is in the German-speaking part of Switzerland.<\/p>\n

He said Denmark 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 only the US was now fit to defend \u201cthis enormous, unsecured island\u201d.<\/p>\n

Greenland\u2019s position between the United States, Russia, and China would make it a critical base for a proposed US missile defence shield called Golden Dome, Trump said, and the US had to take \u201cownership\u201d of a fellow Nato member\u2019s territory in order to provide for its defence.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need the ownership to defend it,\u201d he said. \u201cYou 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, 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

Some European officials were less restrained in their responses to Trump\u2019s speech. The European Green party co-chair Vula Tsetsi urged European leaders to \u201cstand united against Trump\u2019s bullying\u201d over Greenland. Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, had delivered a stirring speech before Trump\u2019s on Wednesday in which he urged smaller countries to present a united front and said that \u201ccompliance [with the United States] will not buy safety\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s remarks on Greenland have unsettled members of his own party. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told CNN at Davos that she welcomed Trump\u2019s pledge not to use force but added it was \u201cunfortunate that it needed to be said\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s referring to it as a piece of real estate,\u201d Murkowski said, adding that Trump had ignored the wishes of native Greenlanders. \u201cBut it is a place where, again, you have native people who live there. You have communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

California governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and strong critic of the administration who is in Davos, emerged from the speech to describe it as, \u201cone of the most insignificant hours I\u2019ve spent in years \u2013 and I think the world spent\u201d, describing it as, \u201cfire and fury amounting to quite literally absolutely nothing\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the 80-minute 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

He deployed openly nationalist rhetoric, boasting about his \u201c100%\u201d German and Scottish heritage, accusing Europe of destroying itself through \u201csocially disruptive migration\u201d, and saying that the \u201cwest cannot mass import foreign cultures, which have failed to ever build a successful society of their own\u201d.<\/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

He also gave details about secret US military capabilities used during the recent capture of Venezuela\u2019s Nicolas Maduro during a raid on his fortified compound.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo weeks ago, they saw weapons that nobody ever heard of. They weren\u2019t able to fire one shot at us,\u201d Trump said. \u201cEverything was discombobulated. They said, we\u2019ve got them in our sights. Press the trigger. And nothing happened \u2026 Those defensive systems were made by Russia and by China.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his speech, Trump was due to hold a series of high-level meetings, including with the leaders of Poland, Switzerland and Egypt, and Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte. He is expected to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday.<\/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

Carney 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 Canada had been given \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 but said the US would not use force…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-256670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}