Donald Trump’s special address at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Wednesday 21 January 2026 lasted just over 70 minutes, unusually long for leaders’ speeches at the WEF’s Davos event.

The President focused on US economic strength, aggressive trade policy, criticized Europe’s vassalic and suicidal economic course. He also blasted the Greens for their climate scam, and pushed his unpopular attempt to acquire Greenland.

Other than Trump’s usual endless and overly repeated boasting tirade of navel-gazing, the Me-me-me egocentrism,

My Governments, and the boosting economy, the Greatest the world has ever seen in the Entire History, and how his worldwide tariff policy brought staggering amounts of new investments into the US – he had some great, straightforward messages, and some hidden ones.

Until Trump appeared with this brilliant idea of import tariffs to help balance the US trade deficit, every country was taking advantage of the US’ free import, creating an all-round negative trade balance for America.

“We give the world so much and get nothing in return”, he kept repeating.

He also said that he would slam a 10% punishment tariff on all those EU and NATO countries that opposed his efforts to take back Greenland, a NATO country – and he, the United States, had given so much to NATO. [Later in the day, it was rumored that he had reneged on the 10%].

What Trump did not mention is that in the 70’s and 80’s of the last century, the US outsourced almost their entire production industry to cheap-labor countries like China and other Asian countries, as well as Latin America. Now the shopping-driven America has to import everything from these cheap labor countries, and from countries where labor is not so cheap to satisfy Americans’ consumer lust.

“We get nothing in return”, was a phrase he used repeatedly, also for NATO, saying until I came and insisted that Europe must pay their share, they paid nothing; they did not even pay the 2% I asked for in my first term, now I asked for 5% (of GDP) and they do now pay up.

President Trump said what hardly anybody dares say in Europe, that the European Union (EU) leadership is heading in the wrong direction ruining her economy, that Europe had lost all sense of autonomy over the last 20 years and was economically on a suicide course.

He referred specifically to the climate agenda scam of the Greens which Europe follows to the letter, when it had one of the world’s largest hydrocarbon resources in the North Sea.

He hinted at the indisputable fact that the world’s economy would collapse without hydrocarbons and now nuclear power, as ever more secure alternative, and supplement.

He insinuated that hydropower was inexhaustible, was “forever” and here to stay – saying something to the effect that the world economy would stop running and “growing” without this vital source of energy.

He ridiculed Europe for “falling” for the windmill scam; they cost more than what they yield.

“You can see these environmental disastrous eyesores everywhere. They buy them from China, but have you ever seen windmill fields in China? There are none. China just produces them sells them to stupid Europe, making money.”

Here, Donald Trump has more than a valid point, the climate scam, and vassalic Europe following a disastrous Green Agenda deindustrializing themselves. He also referred to Europe’s disastrous dividing and culture-destroying immigration policy.

“Such a sad sight to see, very similar to what the US looked like under Biden.”

He repeated ad nauseam how bad the Biden Administration was,

“The worst ever in the entire US history.”

Also a partially valid point.

However, when he talked about getting Greenland back, he did so in different iterations. The front message was Greenland was ours, we owned it when Denmark was asking us to defend them, when they were overrun by Germany in WWII, and after the war we gave it back. That was a mistake. Now I want to correct this mistake for national security reasons.

Intertwined with his Greenland blabber was a clever hidden message. As he said,

“We owned Greenland and gave it back to Denmark not long ago after we defeated the Germans, the Italians, the Japanese and more in WWII – we defeated them Big”, he referred to Greenland as a “piece of ice. “All we are asking for is a piece of ice.”

The truth is, the US never owned Greenland [Denmark’s king asked the US to defend them, setting up [joint] military bases on Greenland]; and Greenland is no piece of ice, far from it. But Greenland is cold, especially in the northern parts crossing over the Arctic Circle.

In between his Greenland pledges, Trump talked about the importance of artificial intelligence (AI), that AI required huge amounts of energy, by 2030 about double the amount of electric energy the US produces today, and these computer centers were gigantic.

He said when META owner [Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media] talked to him about building an AI computer center – Mark Zuckerberg showed him the size of it, overlaying it on a map of Manhattan, almost covering Manhattan, he Trump, had this brilliant idea – you guys, AI center owners produce your own electricity. What they don’t need, they can feed into the grid.

What he did not say is that a large proportion of energy goes for cooling the monster computers. On this huge “piece of ice” – about three times the size of Texas, with only 56,000 inhabitants, the size of such computer centers would hardly matter, and the piece of ice would take care at least partially of the cooling.

Connecting the dots – but who does that these days? – the “piece of ice” has more strategic meaning than just national security. It would help Trump to become the biggest and most efficient and most advanced AI technology leader in the world (his words) – outcasting China by far.

A Trump’s dream, carefully hidden in his Greenland acquisition propaganda.

President Trump repeatedly emphasized that he “won’t use force” to take Greenland—saying “I don’t have to use force, I don’t want to use force, I won’t use force”—while simultaneously describing the US military as “unstoppable,” which underscored the implicit coercive backdrop.

What will really happen to Greenland in the foreseeable future remains to be seen.

Stay tuned.

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst, regular author for Global Research, and a former Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

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