Davos shows that Europe still doesn’t get it

Published January 23, 2026 5:00am ET



Leaders of the business and political worlds gathered this week in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum. Davos has long been lampooned for seeming to be a get-together of elites, each of whom seems more out of touch than the next. This time, it particularly revealed the gulf separating many European leaders from reality.

President Donald Trump and Greenland were on the tip of everyone’s tongue. His desire to secure Greenland and, in particular, his increasingly unhinged rhetoric about seizing the strategically vital island prompted understandable concern from many world leaders. Trump, however, announced at Davos that the U.S. military wouldn’t use force to secure Greenland and that a deal had been reached.

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