Jan. 21,
2026, 6:58 p.m. ET3 hours ago
Zolan
Kanno-YoungsReporting from Davos, Switzerland
At Davos,
a clash between Trump’s world and the old world.
As
President Trump threatened to upend some of the central pillars of the Western
order on Wednesday, during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland, some in the crowd of elites sat speechless. Others groaned. A few
gasped.
Alexander
Stubb, the Finnish president and a key power broker in Europe, stood up
ashen-faced at the end of the speech that took aim at people like him: the
leaders of the Western political and economic elite. As others made for the
exits, Mr. Stubb approached Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South
Carolina — seeking to learn more, Mr. Graham later said, about Mr. Trump and
the United States’ position.
“Everybody
in Europe is concerned,” Mr. Graham, an ally of Mr. Trump, said dismissively
after speaking to Mr. Stubb. “They’re concerned when they get up and when they
go to bed.”
The
reaction from Mr. Stubb, who declined to comment, embodied a broader sense of
shock across the conference, a talking shop for political and economic leaders.
For decades, like-minded politicians, businesspeople, investors and celebrities
have gathered in Davos to discuss a shared economic and political future. But
for more than an hour on Wednesday in one of the main speaking halls, Mr. Trump
transformed the forum into the setting of a dramatic rupture between the West’s
leading player and its increasingly distant allies.
After
mocking European leaders for days, Mr. Trump flew thousands of miles to this
snowy mountainside to launch into a verbal assault against the Western
alliance, the values of its leaders and societies, and the framework of world
trade.
By the
end of the day Mr. Trump had rescinded some of his worst threats, saying that
he had reached a tentative framework with NATO over the future of Greenland,
which he wants to buy from Denmark, and withdrawn threats to impose new tariffs
on allies that opposed U.S. ownership of Greenland.
While
some European leaders expressed a glimmer of hope over the moves, they did
little to salve the deep fear among Davos’s browbeaten guests that the United
States could no longer be relied on as an ally. Earlier in the day the group
had weathered insult after insult from Mr. Trump about their approach to trade,
the environment and immigration.
Scattered
chuckling fell to an anxious silence before turning into audible gasps as Mr.
Trump used his speech to once again demand ownership of Greenland, lash out
against NATO and vaguely threaten economic warfare if the European leaders did
not acquiesce to his demands.
European
leaders sat stunned as Mr. Trump insulted their governments and questioned
their reliability as allies. Others grimaced as Mr. Trump claimed the European
nations and Canada owed the United States a debt. Some even scrambled after the
speech to find and question current and former U.S. officials about the
president’s thinking and the future of the United States as a trustworthy
partner.
Phil
Gordon, a former national security adviser for Kamala Harris who attended the
speech, said foreign officials approached him during the summit asking if Mr.
Trump’s position was now “permanent.”
“Is this
America?” Mr. Gordon said European officials asked him on Wednesday. “And is
the post-World War II era definitively over — or is there any hope it comes
back?”
But there
was also a growing acceptance that a new world order is now emerging, right
under their noses at a conference that for years was so emblematic of the old
frameworks.
“They
accept that under Trump this is a new world,” said Mr. Gordon. “No one can deny
that and even the Europeans who have been in denial now accept.”
In his
speech, Mr. Trump crystallized an idea central to that new world — a searing
disregard for the post-World War II world order.
Mr. Trump
suggested the European allies owed him Greenland. He said that without the
United States’ efforts in World War II, “you’d all be speaking German and a
little Japanese perhaps,” prompting moans from the crowd. And while he said he
would not use force to obtain Greenland — prompting some to breathe a sigh of
relief — he did continued to frame Greenland as a debt that needed to be paid.
“You can
say yes and we will be very appreciative or you can say no and we will
remember,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump
took particular aim at Switzerland, the country hosting the summit, stunning
some Swiss officials. “They’re only good because of us,” Mr. Trump said of the
Swiss as he celebrated his sweeping tariffs.
“I was
really astonished,” said Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter, a member of the Swiss
Parliament. “We are the hosts, we are the guarantee for his security from the
airport to Davos, with public tax money spent, and I was convinced that we had
resolved the trade issue.”
Whether
the attendees liked his speech or not — and many seemed to loathe it — Mr.
Trump’s appearance was the talk of the conference.
Outside
the hall where Mr. Trump spoke, companies held watch parties to view his
speech. Attendees tried to rearrange meetings in order not to miss it. On the
promenade, people live streamed his remarks while walking, before others later
recounted the bombshells in the speech. “Are we even important?” one asked.
Yet
others spoke of a disaster averted, particularly after Mr. Trump said he was
not interested in using force to acquire Greenland. Senator Chris Coons,
Democrat of Delaware, said he later encountered some European officials who
told him “it could’ve been worse.”
“It’s
remarkable when we’ve gotten to a place where we’re saying it could’ve been
worse because an American president took off the table the use of force against
a NATO ally,” Mr. Coons said.
Here and
there, you could find warm support for the president.
After his
speech, Mr. Trump spoke at a reception for business executives, financial
chiefs and cryptocurrency leaders.
“We got
great reviews,” Mr. Trump told the crowd. “I can’t believe it, but we got good
reviews of that speech. Usually they say he’s a horrible dictator type person,
but sometimes you need a dictator.”
Minutes
later, as Mr. Trump finished speaking, he was met with loud applause.
And once
Mr. Trump revoked some of his biggest threats on Wednesday evening, the mood
across the conference edged closer to relief.
After Mr.
Trump’s decision to pull back on tariffs, some attendees texted their peers a
single word: “Taco!”
The term
is short for Trump Always Chickens Out, a tongue-in-cheek quip adopted by some
critics to describe Mr. Trump’s tendency to threaten sweeping tariffs, only to
pull them back.
“They’ve
lived through so many cycles of this,” Mr. Gordon said. “You live to fight
another day.”
Jordyn
Holman and Peter S. Goodman contributed reporting from Davos, Switzerland.
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