President Donald Trump arrived in a provocative mood on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he gave a defiant and extensive speech in which he upset European partners or developing economies, although he finally improved the general feeling by stating that he does not plan to use force to annex Greenland and that he will not impose tariffs after reaching an agreement in principle on the island, without giving details.
The Republican also dedicated a good part of his speech to talking about the successes of his first year back in power, something he had already done the day before for 80 minutes at a press conference in Washington.
The mood in the convention center – and in the financial markets – calmed down when he assured that he was ruling out the military option to take over Greenland, although he used the term “our territory” to refer to the island and urged to carry out “negotiations immediately” on behalf of this territory that depends on Denmark and that Trump claims for reasons of national security.
“You can say yes (to annexation) and we will be very grateful. Or you can say no, and we will remember it,” Trump said, addressing authorities in Copenhagen.
“We have acquired many other territories throughout our history, like many European nations,” added the real estate businessman, who believed that “there is nothing wrong” in this type of colonialist practices.
He also mistakenly referred to Greenland as “Iceland” up to four times during his speech, in which he incorrectly stated that his country has never “received anything in return” from NATO and has paid 100% of its budget.
He also announced that he would meet today with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who actually does not arrive in Davos until Thursday to meet with Trump.
In an audience increasingly uncomfortable with the words of the American president, Trump also chose to criticize the host country, Switzerland, recalling a call he had, to avoid the imposition of tariffs last year, with President Karin Keller-Sutter, who he said “irritated him quite a bit” on the phone with her pleas.
In a similar context, he recalled some threats to impose trade taxes on other partners, mocked the French president, Emmanuel Macron, over a call about pharmaceutical products, and boasted of taking “three minutes” on average to coerce different countries with this type of tariff intimidation.
He also criticized the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, for his speech in Davos the day before, in which the economist and Liberal Party politician advocated forging new alliances that allow countries with less economic power to protect themselves from the coercion of the superpowers.
The New York tycoon said that Canada “exists thanks to the United States.” “Remember that, Mark (Carney), the next time you make your statements,” Trump warned.
In turn, he continued his attacks against Somalia and the Somali community in the state of Minnesota, which he accuses of perpetrating massive embezzlement of federal funds.
“Can you believe that Somalis turned out to have a higher IQ than we thought? We say they are people with low IQ,” he said, before being surprised that they are capable of supposedly embezzling funds.
After speaking for 70 minutes (35 minutes more than what was scheduled) and again attacking Europe – as he already did at the United Nations General Assembly – for its immigration and renewable energy policies, the executive director of the World Economic Forum, Borge Brende, interviewed him.
The Republican said he had not been informed of this but proceeded to sit down with Brende, who had to ask him to focus to talk about specific issues.
The excessive duration of the event forced the cancellation of a session on the Middle East to which the Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, and his British counterpart, Yvette Cooper, were invited.
It was after a subsequent bilateral meeting – in which he took the opportunity to snub the Danish Chancellor, Lars Løkke Rasmussen – with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, when Trump announced on social networks that he would not apply tariffs when reaching a “framework agreement” with the Atlantic Alliance on Greenland of which he did not give details.
At the end of this meeting, he offered interviews with American networks, and in one of them he assumed that Denmark accepts the pact, considering that Rutte “represents it” in its capacity as a member of the Atlantic Alliance.
He also noted that NATO allies will participate in the construction of the anti-missile system called Golden Dome and in matters related to Greenland minerals and that the agreement will last “forever.”
With information from EFE
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