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A funny thing happened this week that you wouldn’t think possible from reading the common narrative of President Trump as a Frankenstein’s monster unchained to do whatever he wants: He backed down from his demands to own Greenland. And he did so after financial markets, European allies and the U.S. Congress raised objections. The “authoritarian” Trump narrative was wrong again. This isn’t to dismiss Mr. Trump’s often wild demands and threats. They have consequences in lost trust among allies and doubts about American reliability. These costs are hard to quantify, but they are real and may show up in a...

Nathan’s Famous — the century-old hot dog brand synonymous with Coney Island and Fourth of July excess — has been sold for $450 million to Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods.

Donald Trump has sparked fresh outrage in the UK after saying Nato troops stayed "a little off the front lines" during the war in Afghanistan. Labour MP Emily Thornberry, the chair of the foreign affairs committee, called it an "absolute insult" to the 457 British service personnel killed in the conflict, while Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: "How dare he question their sacrifice?" Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, who served in Afghanistan, said it was "sad to see our nation's sacrifice, and that of our Nato partners, held so cheaply". The UK was among several allies to join the...

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Jan. 21 that the issue of Greenland remaining part of Denmark did not come up during his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.Rutte, in an interview with Fox News, was asked about Greenland’s sovereignty under a proposed framework Trump mentioned earlier in the day at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.“That issue did not come up anymore in my conversations,” Rutte said. “[Trump] is very much focused on what do we need to do to make sure that that huge Arctic region—where change is taking place at the moment, where the Chinese and...

Pro-Palestinian activist and former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil — who the Trump administration has accused of being pro-Hamas — is going to have to make the North African country of Algeria his new home, the Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday.The move comes after an appellate court decision cleared the way for the Syrian-born activists’ removal.🚨 BREAKING: Pro-Palestine radical foreigner Mahmoud Khalil to be DEPORTED TO ALGERIAPresident Trump's DHS has WON in court, the activist judge was overturned, and Khalil will be sent OUTGOOD RIDDANCE! 👋🏻👋🏻pic.twitter.com/bYJeZFf922— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 22, 2026IN A BAD MOUD: Trump Admin Scores...

In the fall of 1998, I traveled to Denmark to take up my duties as the American Ambassador in Copenhagen. Often referred to as the “Fairytale Kingdom,” courtesy of its native son, Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark is a remarkable country that has been an exceptional ally of the United States for well over 200 years. The Danes have built a nation that combines Viking valor with a deep sense of duty to be one’s brother’s keeper. The admirable character of the Danish people was perhaps best exemplified when it became the only country in Europe to rescue virtually its entire...

Top business leaders this week delivered an expletive-laden plea in defense of climate action, describing the backlash to Europe’s green transition as an “aberration.” In an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte said he disagreed with the suggestion that it may just be a matter of time before net zero is dismissed in Europe, saying short-term thinking on this issue is “bulls---.” Asked about political leaders backtracking on their much-vaunted European Green New Deal and Norway’s oil fund reportedly defending a push from companies to water down their climate goals, Bäte...

The latest media palpitation about Donald Trump concerns his just-announced “Board of Peace.” Unveiled as an initiative to manage the introduction of tranquillity and physical reconstruction of that pile of rubble formerly known as Gaza, the Board of Peace seems to be filling all the empty space in the parking lot reserved for international relations. Think Big! The BoP now seems to take as its mandate international conflict more generally. Reporting on the fledgling enterprise, a story on ABC News mournfully told the world that “Critics and government leaders are decrying the board, saying it undermines the United Nations.” Is...

California's Gov. Gavin Newsom slammed President Trump in Davos, Switzerland, and Trump slammed back. Sonoma State political science professor David McCuan dissects. Transcript Summary California Governor Gavin Newsom stated that a planned speaking event (a simple conversation/discussion) at the USA House in Davos, Switzerland, during the World Economic Forum was canceled following President Trump's speech. Newsom attributed the cancellation to actions ensuring he could not speak, amid his criticisms of Trump and calls for world leaders to stand up to him. Newsom spoke the next morning at the forum, where he accused the Trump administration of intimidation and denying rights,...

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Trump slams open borders, green energy dogma, and elite-driven economic decline.U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a blunt, confrontational address at the World Economic Forum, using the Davos stage to reject the globalist consensus that dominates the annual gathering of political and corporate elites. In a speech that cut sharply against the forum’s open-borders ideology, Trump condemned mass migration policies pushed by Western governments and international institutions, announcing that his administration would immediately halt federal funding to so-called “sanctuary cities.” He dismissed them as “sanctuaries for criminals,” arguing that unchecked immigration undermines public safety, wages,...

China posted a jaw-dropping $1.2 trillion trade surplus in 2025—most of which came from the Global South, rather than the United States. Amid various other major events in global news—large-scale unrest in Iran, the stunning tactical raid directed against the Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela, and the ongoing spat between the United States and Denmark (and other European nations) over Greenland—one item has gone virtually unnoticed. China, the world’s second-largest economy, reported a $1.189 trillion trade surplus for 2025—meaning that the total value of its exports for the year exceeded its imports by that amount.

CAIRO (AP) — Desperate Palestinians at a garbage dump in a Gaza neighborhood dug with their bare hands for plastic items to burn to keep warm in the cold and damp winter in the enclave, battered by two years of the Israel-Hamas war. The scene in the Muwasi area of the city of Khan Younis contrasted starkly with the vision of the territory projected by world leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland, where they inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace that will oversee Gaza. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump claimed that “record levels” of humanitarian aid...

It's pretty amazing how standards have fallen at Davos, the pricey Swiss ski resort turned home of the so-called big thinkers and global elites.In other words, our betters.Here's one of their favorites in action, according to Mediaite:The heckler who booed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and upended an event in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday has been unmasked, and he’s a familiar face in politics.Lutnick was speaking at an invite-only VIP dinner event hosted by billionaire BlackRock boss Larry Fink when a heckler, now identified as climate change advocate and former Vice President Al Gore, started booing the former Cantor Fitzgerald CEO.Gore’s...

President Trump said Thursday that the US will receive “total access” to Greenland under the terms of a “framework” deal announced a day earlier at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We’re talking about, it’s really being negotiated now, the details of it, but essentially it’s total access,” Trump told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.” “There’s no end, there’s no time limit.” The president, who also ruled out using military force to annex the world’s largest island Wednesday, stressed that Greenland is critical to national security and will be used for his vaunted space-based Golden Dome missile defense...

It looks like a case of wiener take all. Nathan’s Famous, an iconic American hot dog maker and fast-food chain, was sold to Smithfield Inc., a Chinese-owned pork producer, in a $450 million all-cash deal. The two companies announced the merger in a statement Tuesday. Smithfield Foods will acquire all of Nathan’s Famous shares for $102 each, according to the announcement. "The Nathan’s Famous acquisition is a meaningful step in the progression of Smithfield Foods allowing us to own all of the top brands in our packaged meats portfolio," Shane Smith, Smithfield CEO and president, said in the statement. Smithfield...

Syria’s Al Qaeda regime is massacring Kurds to free imprisoned ISIS terrorists, state sponsors of Hamas in Turkey and Qatar are being named to boards running Gaza and thousands of democracy protesters are being massacred in Iran while Al Jazeera defends the regime. This isn’t American foreign policy, but it is Qatar’s foreign policy. The White House’s foreign policy in the Muslim world is now virtually identical to Qatar’s foreign policy apart from Israel. And as thousands die in Iran after empty promises of support, there is a bigger picture here of institutional capture by a tiny and powerful Islamic...

The headline from Trump’s Davos speech is clear: I won’t use military force to take Greenland. That’s what the President told the world’s leading politicians and business executives at the World Economic Forum. That declaration was very good news for all of them and for US investors, who immediately started buying stocks, erasing about half the losses suffered Tuesday, when the threat of force seemed possible. They all knew that carrying out that military threat would shatter the institutional foundation of Western security: NATO and US-European relations. Instead of military threats, Trump emphasized America’s disproportionate contributions to European defense since...

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday spoke for more than an hour at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. While his meandering remarks touched on multiple familiar topics, including windmills—a longtime personal pet peeve—the state of the U.S. economy, and his long-running 2020 U.S. presidential election denialism, Trump spoke at length about his desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark. He also strongly criticized NATO and said other members of the Western military alliance have taken advantage of U.S. generosity over the years. The following is an excerpt from his remarks focusing on Greenland, Denmark, NATO, and U.S. military...

President Donald Trump’s climbdown on Greenland capped one of the most erratic episodes involving a modern president on the world stage. Within hours Wednesday, Trump flipped from demanding “right, title, and ownership” of the semiautonomous Danish territory to celebrating an “infinite,” “forever” framework deal over its future. Outside the right-wing bubble, Trump is being mocked for another “TACO” (“Trump always chickens out”) moment after dropping the threat of tariffs on European nations until they agreed to give him Greenland. Just as with his “Liberation Day” tariffs, the president may have been spooked by the result of his own actions.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer went after President Trump on Wednesday for reversing position on a deal surrounding the Chagos Islands, suggesting the president did so because of tensions over his plan to acquire Greenland. “I made out my position on Greenland absolutely clear on Monday and a moment ago. President Trump deployed words on Chagos yesterday that were different to his previous words of welcome and support when I met him in the White House,” Starmer said in the House of Commons. “He deployed those words yesterday for the express purpose of putting pressure on me and Britain in...