At Davos, the World Watched the Rantings of a Despot
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Authoritarian Watch
/ January 23, 2026
At Davos, the World Watched the Rantings of a Despot
President Donald Trump has turned his back on the liberal world order—and Europe is unlikely to follow.
Sasha Abramsky
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President Donald Trump walks toward Marine One after arriving at Zurich Airport before attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, on January 21, 2026, in Zurich, Switzerland.
(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
One year into Trump 2.0, a predatory, imperialist, and increasingly deranged President Trump, has, with his demands that Denmark cede Greenland to the United States, precipitated the most serious rupture of the Western Alliance since the Suez crisis in 1956, when the United States squared off against the United Kingdom, France, and Israel over the future of the canal.
Late last week, Trump began ratcheting up the pressure on Denmark to cede Greenland to the United States. He announced a 10 percent tariff on eight European countries that had sent troops to Greenland for a military exercise. On Sunday afternoon, he composed a poorly punctuated, paranoiac note to the Norwegian prime minister in which he blamed the Norwegian government for not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, said the rejection had liberated him to stop thinking about peace, and claimed that it had set him on the path to conquer Greenland to protect the United States. The note was distributed by the National Security Council to all of Europe’s ambassadors to the United States, giving it something of the imprimatur of a formal policy statement. There were days over the past week where it seemed possible that US military personnel would be ordered into a firefight against NATO allies to fulfill Trump’s fever dream of hemispheric ownership.
This isn’t simply an outrageous case of schoolyard petulance; it is, in full public view, the ranting of a nuclear-armed lunatic. And it is part of a pattern of increasingly bizarre public performances, including his Tuesday afternoon press briefing at the White House, in which he veered from topic to topic, often failed to put coherent sentences together, and mused about his absolute powers.
Current Issue
February 2026 Issue
On Wednesday, Trump journeyed to Davos seemingly intent on lobbing insults at every European leader who came his way, as well as the many immigrants in his crosshairs. He bemoaned “low-IQ” Somali immigrants in the United States, attacked Europe for being open to large-scale migration, and repeatedly declared how ungrateful the continent was for the United States’ preeminent role in NATO over the decades. He wondered aloud about raising tariffs again …
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Current Issue
Authoritarian Watch
/ January 23, 2026
At Davos, the World Watched the Rantings of a Despot
President Donald Trump has turned his back on the liberal world order—and Europe is unlikely to follow.
Sasha Abramsky
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
President Donald Trump walks toward Marine One after arriving at Zurich Airport before attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, on January 21, 2026, in Zurich, Switzerland.
(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
One year into Trump 2.0, a predatory, imperialist, and increasingly deranged President Trump, has, with his demands that Denmark cede Greenland to the United States, precipitated the most serious rupture of the Western Alliance since the Suez crisis in 1956, when the United States squared off against the United Kingdom, France, and Israel over the future of the canal.
Late last week, Trump began ratcheting up the pressure on Denmark to cede Greenland to the United States. He announced a 10 percent tariff on eight European countries that had sent troops to Greenland for a military exercise. On Sunday afternoon, he composed a poorly punctuated, paranoiac note to the Norwegian prime minister in which he blamed the Norwegian government for not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, said the rejection had liberated him to stop thinking about peace, and claimed that it had set him on the path to conquer Greenland to protect the United States. The note was distributed by the National Security Council to all of Europe’s ambassadors to the United States, giving it something of the imprimatur of a formal policy statement. There were days over the past week where it seemed possible that US military personnel would be ordered into a firefight against NATO allies to fulfill Trump’s fever dream of hemispheric ownership.
This isn’t simply an outrageous case of schoolyard petulance; it is, in full public view, the ranting of a nuclear-armed lunatic. And it is part of a pattern of increasingly bizarre public performances, including his Tuesday afternoon press briefing at the White House, in which he veered from topic to topic, often failed to put coherent sentences together, and mused about his absolute powers.
Current Issue
February 2026 Issue
On Wednesday, Trump journeyed to Davos seemingly intent on lobbing insults at every European leader who came his way, as well as the many immigrants in his crosshairs. He bemoaned “low-IQ” Somali immigrants in the United States, attacked Europe for being open to large-scale migration, and repeatedly declared how ungrateful the continent was for the United States’ preeminent role in NATO over the decades. He wondered aloud about raising tariffs again …
At Davos, the World Watched the Rantings of a Despot
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At Davos, the World Watched the Rantings of a Despot
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Current Issue
Authoritarian Watch
/ January 23, 2026
At Davos, the World Watched the Rantings of a Despot
President Donald Trump has turned his back on the liberal world order—and Europe is unlikely to follow.
Sasha Abramsky
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
President Donald Trump walks toward Marine One after arriving at Zurich Airport before attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, on January 21, 2026, in Zurich, Switzerland.
(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
One year into Trump 2.0, a predatory, imperialist, and increasingly deranged President Trump, has, with his demands that Denmark cede Greenland to the United States, precipitated the most serious rupture of the Western Alliance since the Suez crisis in 1956, when the United States squared off against the United Kingdom, France, and Israel over the future of the canal.
Late last week, Trump began ratcheting up the pressure on Denmark to cede Greenland to the United States. He announced a 10 percent tariff on eight European countries that had sent troops to Greenland for a military exercise. On Sunday afternoon, he composed a poorly punctuated, paranoiac note to the Norwegian prime minister in which he blamed the Norwegian government for not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, said the rejection had liberated him to stop thinking about peace, and claimed that it had set him on the path to conquer Greenland to protect the United States. The note was distributed by the National Security Council to all of Europe’s ambassadors to the United States, giving it something of the imprimatur of a formal policy statement. There were days over the past week where it seemed possible that US military personnel would be ordered into a firefight against NATO allies to fulfill Trump’s fever dream of hemispheric ownership.
This isn’t simply an outrageous case of schoolyard petulance; it is, in full public view, the ranting of a nuclear-armed lunatic. And it is part of a pattern of increasingly bizarre public performances, including his Tuesday afternoon press briefing at the White House, in which he veered from topic to topic, often failed to put coherent sentences together, and mused about his absolute powers.
Current Issue
February 2026 Issue
On Wednesday, Trump journeyed to Davos seemingly intent on lobbing insults at every European leader who came his way, as well as the many immigrants in his crosshairs. He bemoaned “low-IQ” Somali immigrants in the United States, attacked Europe for being open to large-scale migration, and repeatedly declared how ungrateful the continent was for the United States’ preeminent role in NATO over the decades. He wondered aloud about raising tariffs again …
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