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Trump's Davos speech, explained: From who calls him 'Daddy' to why 'Iceland' came up
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a speech heavily aimed at a domestic audience and focused on America’s economy, but which also made crucial reference to the many geopolitical storms that involve America today, from Greenland and Gaza to Venezuela and Ukraine. He said America is owed legal title to Greenland, though said he would not take it by force. He referred to the Russian president as “Vladimir,” the French president as “Emmanuel,” the former president of the Swiss Confederation as “a woman,” and the NATO secretary-general as “Mark,” and fondly remembered the time Mark Rutte called him “Daddy.” He called Greenland “Iceland” a few times. It all stood in contrast to the speech on Tuesday by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney — whom Trump also called “Mark,” but in a less conciliatory manner — which quoted both the Ancient Greek historian Thucydides (“the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must”) and the modern corporate aphorism that “if you are not at the table, you are on the menu,” and was over in about 15 minutes with a standing ovation. Trump’s was well over an hour. The National Post annotates some of the key portions of Trump’s speech.
TRUMP: Today, after 12 months back in the White House, our economy is booming, growth is exploding, productivity is surging, investment is soaring, incomes are rising, inflation has been defeated, our previously open and dangerous border is closed and virtually impenetrable, and the United States is in the midst of the fastest and most dramatic economic turnaround in our country’s history…. People are doing very well. They’re very happy with me.
This is familiar Trumpian hyperbole, a theme that continued through the rest of his speech. Everything is the best ever, the biggest ever, more than anyone ever expected. Public opinion polling indicates Trump’s approval rating is at negative 19 points, down two points since last week, with 37 per cent approving, 56 per cent disapproving and five per cent not sure.
TRUMP: Just over one year ago, under the radical-left Democrats, we were a dead country. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world…. And this is all great news, and it’s great for all nations. The USA is the economic engine on the planet. And when America booms, the entire world booms. It’s been the history. When it goes bad, it goes bad. And I hope we all — y’all follow us down and you follow us up.
Trump does not usually use the folksy contraction of “y’all,” but he did here, with a muted chuckle.
TRUMP: I want to discuss how we have achieved this economic miracle, how we intend to raise living standards for our citizens to levels never seen before, and perhaps how you, too, and the places where you come from could do much better by following what we’re doing because certain places in Europe are not even recognizable, frankly, anymore. They’re not recognizable. And we can argue about it, but there’s no argument. Friends come back from different places — I don’t want to insult anybody — and say, ‘I don’t recognize it.’ And that’s not in a positive way. That’s in a very negative way. And I love Europe, and I want to see Europe go good. But it’s not heading in the right direction…. The United States cares greatly about the people of Europe. We really do. I mean, look, I am derived from Europe. Scotland and Germany, 100 per cent Scotland, my mother, 100 per cent German, my father. And we believe deeply in the bonds we share with Europe as a civilization.
Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born in 1912 in Tong, a town on Scottish Hebridean Isle of Lewis near the main port Stornoway, and immigrated to America in 1930. His father, Fred Trump, was born in New York to German immigrant parents.
TRUMP: U.S. oil production is up by 730,000 barrels a day. And last week, we picked up 50 million barrels from Venezuela alone. Venezuela has been an amazing place for so many years, but then they went bad with their policies. Twenty years ago, it was a great country, and now it’s got problems. But we’re helping them. And those 50 million barrels, we’re going to be splitting up with them, and they’ll be making more money than they’ve made in a long time. Venezuela is going to do fantastically well. We appreciate all of the cooperation we’ve been giving. We’ve been giving great cooperation. Once the attack ended, the attack ended, and they said, “Let’s make a deal.” More people should do that.
On Jan. 3, in a military strike called Operation Absolute Resolve , American forces bombed Venezuelan air defences and sent a team into the capital, Caracas, to capture the autocratic leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and transport them to New York for prosecution for narcoterrorism. The only U.S. oil company now operating in Venezuela is Chevron, whose executives have indicated a reluctance to invest further. Other oil companies have also resisted Trump’s urging, a week after Maduro’s ouster, to pledge immediate investment.
TRUMP: There are windmills all over the place. And they are losers. One thing I’ve noticed is that the more windmills a country has, the more money that country loses and the worse that country is doing. China makes almost all of the windmills, and yet I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China. Did you ever think of that? It’s a good way of looking. You know, they’re smart. China is very smart. They make them. They sell them for a fortune. They sell them to the stupid people that buy them, but they don’t use them themselves. They put up a couple of big wind farms, but they don’t use them. They just put them up to show people what they could look like. They don’t spin.
China’s state-run media outlet China Daily reported last October that the country had 520 gigawatts of installed wind power capacity in 2024, and is on track to add 120 gigawatts of new wind power generation annually for a capacity of 1.3 terawatts within five years. For comparison, Canada has about 18 gigawatts of installed wind power capacity.
TRUMP: Would you like me to say a few words of Greenland? I was going to leave it out of the speech, but I thought — I think I would have been reviewed very negatively. I have tremendous respect for both the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark. Tremendous respect. But every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend their own territory. And the fact is, no nation or group of nations is in any position to be able to secure Greenland other than the United States. We’re a great power, much greater than people even understand. I think they found that out two weeks ago in Venezuela. We saw this in World War II, when Denmark fell to Germany after just six hours of fighting and was totally unable to defend either itself or Greenland. So the United States was then compelled — we did it, we felt an obligation to do it — to defend our own forces, to hold the Greenland territory. And hold it, we did, at great cost and expense. They didn’t have a chance of getting on it, and they tried. Denmark knows that. We literally set up bases on Greenland for Denmark. We fought for Denmark. We weren’t fighting for anyone else. We were fighting to save it. For Denmark, big, beautiful piece of ice — it’s hard to call it land, it’s a big piece of ice — but we saved Greenland and successfully prevented our enemies from gaining a foothold in our hemisphere. So we did it for ourselves also.
Nazi Germany invaded Denmark in the spring of 1940, prompting the U.S. to scramble a defence of its security and strategic interests in the Danish territory of Greenland, including mining. The U.S. entered the war a year and a half later, after being attacked by Japan. Greenland is land, and is generally regarded as the largest island in the world, and is mostly covered by ice.
TRUMP: And that’s the reason I’m seeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States, just as we have acquired many other territories throughout our history, as many of the European nations have…. This would not be a threat to NATO. This would greatly enhance the security of the entire alliance, the NATO alliance. The United States is treated very unfairly by NATO, I want to tell you that. When you think about it, nobody can dispute it. We give so much and we get so little in return.
More than 150 Canadians died in the war in Afghanistan, which began in defence of the United States in 2001 with the first ever declaration of NATO’s mutual defence rule.
TRUMP: Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful also. But they’re not. I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn’t so grateful. They should be grateful to us. Canada. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.
This is a reference to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech on Tuesday, which did not name any specific country or leader, but described a “rupture” in geopolitics to which middle powers should respond by coordinating mutual support resistance and resistance to economic sabotage.
TRUMP: Our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So Iceland’s already cost us a lot of money. But that dip is peanuts compared to what it’s gone up. And we have an unbelievable future in that stock. That stock market is going to be doubled. We’re going to hit 50,000, and that stock market’s going to double in a relatively short period of time because of everything that’s happening.
Trump appears to mean Greenland, but said “Iceland.”
TRUMP: Until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me “Daddy.” The last time, a very smart man said, “He’s our daddy. He’s running it.” I was like running it. I went from running it to being a terrible human being. But now what I’m asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located, that can play a vital role in world peace and world protection. It’s a very small ask compared to what we have given them for many, many decades.
This is reference to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. In June, amid the conflict between Israel and Iran, Trump criticized them both for breaking a ceasefire, saying they had been fighting for so long they “don’t know what the f–k they’re doing.” Afterwards, at a NATO summit, he compared the two countries to children fighting. Rutte took the analogy further and said “Daddy has to sometimes use strong language.”
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