US President Donald Trump raised the temperature at the frigid Swiss ski resort of Davos on Wednesday, doubling down on his goal of acquiring Greenland and saying prosecutions were looming for people he claims “rigged” the 2020 election.
Over the course of an hour and 12 minutes, it was a typical rambling Trump speech: a long list of his imaginary successes – defeating inflation, a tsunami of investment flowing into the US – marked by his many grievances, including calling Fed Chair Jerome Powell “stupid”.
“We are seeking immediate negotiations to acquire Greenland… All the US is asking for is a place called Greenland,” Trump, who seemed tired with laboured breathing at times, told the annual gathering of the world’s economic elite in a televised address.
Not long after he concluded his speech, Reuters reported that the European Parliament had decided to suspend its work on a trade deal between the 27-member bloc and the United States, following Trump’s repeated requests to take control of Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory.
Chris Holdsworth, chief investment strategist from Investec Wealth and Investment International noted that although President Trump ruled out taking Greenland by force, he did repeatedly state that he still wants the US to own it. “Denmark clearly is not on the same page. We can expect further tariff disputes and uncertainty throughout whatever negotiations occur. More deeply, questions around the safe haven status of US government debt are likely to resurface. In summary there’s a little less uncertainty but the Greenland issue is still likely to be a source of volatility for the market for the foreseeable future,” Holdsworth said.
South Africa wasn’t mentioned at all. “It seems Greenland is the current top strategic priority and SA is on the back burner (for now at least?). This is not necessarily positive for SA assets,” Holdsworth, who is part of the SA delegation at Davos, observed.
He added that if SA had been mentioned, it could have had an impact on SA assets such as the Rand and equity assets, and as such, it’s a better outcome than it could have been.
The US markets opened to an upward trend, just as Trump finished speaking.
Pyromania
Trump reiterated that for the US, Greenland was a burning national security issue.
“I will not use force” to take Greenland, he added. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no, and we will remember.”
Greenland and Denmark have both already said “no”.
Menacingly, Trump also said that people would soon be prosecuted over the 2020 US presidential election, falsely claiming once again that it had been “rigged”.
But it was when pivoting to the global economy that Trump fully donned the mantle of a misguided energy expert, lecturing the Davos elite on what he termed the “green new scam”.
Play it again, Uncle Sam
Fresh off the release of a White House report yesterday – which trumpeted “365 wins” in his first year and claimed the reinvigoration of the “clean coal” industry – Trump used the WEF stage to peddle a dystopian view of renewable energy.
He painted a picture in which nations investing in sustainability were economically doomed, mirroring his administration’s official stance that climate mandates had to be “terminated” to restore “American Energy Dominance”.
“If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail,” Trump warned, presenting his deregulation of the US oil and gas sector as the only path to economic survival.
In a particularly bizarre segment, he zeroed in on wind energy like a rider lancing an enemy, recycling myths about avian fatalities and landscape aesthetics.
Fighting with the wind
“Windmills are losers,” Don Trump declared. He insisted that wind turbines “kill the birds and ruin the landscapes”, before launching into a conspiracy theory that Beijing was duping the West.
“China makes them and sells them to stupid people,” Trump said, falsely asserting that while China profits from manufacturing turbines, they refuse to use them domestically – conveniently forgetting that Vestas Wind Systems, a Danish company, is the world’s leading wind turbine manufacturer.
The speech mirrored the tone of yesterday’s administration report, which prioritised the “expansion of fossil fuel production” and celebrated the opening of millions of acres for coal leasing.
Yet, beneath the bluster about “liquid gold” and record LNG exports, the address revealed a leader increasingly isolated in his belief that the future of economic growth lies solely in the hydrocarbons of the past. DM
