U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions from the media during a press briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on Jan. 20, 2026 in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n
Win McNamee | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Markets on Tuesday flashed the classic signs of a “sell America” trade<\/a>, as investors recoiled from escalating risks tied to Washington’s foreign policy.<\/p>\n Major U.S. indexes tumbled in their worst day since October, pushing the S&P 500<\/a> and Nasdaq Composite<\/a> into negative territory for 2026. Volatility jumped, with the VIX index<\/a>, Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” spiking to a high of 20.99. Meanwhile, bond yields jumped, the U.S. Dollar Index<\/a> fell and gold<\/a> prices hit new records.<\/p>\n Those moves reflected concerns raised by Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, who warned that mounting tensions could spill into capital markets.<\/p>\n Dalio said Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive moves toward annexing Greenland could prompt foreign governments and investors to reconsider their appetite for U.S. assets.<\/a><\/p>\n “On the other side of trade deficits and trade wars, there are capital and capital wars,” Dalio told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” at the World Economic Forum in\u00a0Davos<\/a>, Switzerland.<\/p>\n One early signal emerged from Denmark. Pension fund AkademikerPension<\/a> said it will sell roughly $100 million<\/a> in U.S. Treasurys.<\/p>\n The decision was driven by concerns over “poor [U.S.] government finances” and “not directly related to the ongoing rift between the [U.S.] and Europe,” said Anders Schelde, the fund’s investing chief, though he added that recent tensions between the U.S. and Europe “didn’t make it more difficult to take the decision.”<\/p>\n U.S. officials, for their part, struck a defiant tone. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC at Davos that “the U.S. is back<\/a>, and this is what U.S. leadership looks like.” Bessent made those comments before markets closed Tuesday.<\/p>\n International reaction to Trump’s moves has been far less receptive. Greenlanders are “bewildered” by the U.S. president<\/a>, the arctic island’s business minister told CNBC on Tuesday, while French President Emmanuel Macron hit out at “bullies” and “brutality”<\/a> \u2014 without giving specifics \u2014 as he called for U.S. tariffs on Europe to be abolished.<\/p>\n But, amid the furor in recent days, Trump doesn’t appear to be backing down.<\/p>\n \u00a0“I’m leaving tonight, as you know, Davos, and we have a lot of meetings scheduled on Greenland,” Trump said Tuesday. “I think things are going to work out pretty well.” <\/p>\n Trump may be right. The more immediate question rattling markets is: work out pretty well for whom?<\/p>\n What you need to know today<\/p>\n U.S. markets slump on Greenland jitters. The S&P 500 tumbled 2.06%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a> shed 1.76% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.39%. It was the worst session since October<\/a> for all three indexes. The pan-European Stoxx 600<\/a> lost 0.7%<\/a>. <\/p>\n Danish pension fund to sell Treasurys.\u00a0AkademikerPension<\/a>\u00a0said it is exiting its position of<\/a> around $100 million in U.S. Treasurys, citing fiscal concerns. Greenlanders, meanwhile, are “bewildered<\/a>” by Trump’s “devastating” bid to annex the Arctic island, its business minister told CNBC.<\/p>\n India signs $3 billion LNG agreement with the UAE. Under the deal, New Delhi will be the UAE’s largest customer of liquefied natural gas. India also announced Monday\u00a0it\u00a0plans<\/a>\u00a0to double bilateral trade with the UAE<\/a> to $200 billion by 2032.<\/p>\n Netflix posts narrow earnings beat. Fourth-quarter earnings per share<\/a> came in at 56 cents, one cent higher than estimated, while revenue was $12.05 billion vs. $11.97 billion forecasted. Earlier on Tuesday, Netflix<\/a> amended its Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a> offer to an all-cash bid<\/a>.<\/p>\n [PRO] Doubts that Greenland sell-off will last. Wall Street analysts said that despite surprise over Trump’s “weaponization of tariffs,” tensions could eventually cool<\/a>.<\/p>\n