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Trump's whirlwind day in Davos: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, Andrea Mitchell examines the fallout from President Donald Trump’s Davos speech. Plus, Kayla Steinberg and Christine Romans provide a reality check for Trump’s recent boasts about the U.S. economy.

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— Adam Wollner

Trump brings his antagonistic approach toward U.S. allies to Davos

Analysis by Andrea Mitchell

If anyone expected President Donald Trump to be diplomatic when he appeared in Davos today, they got a reality check almost immediately. Within minutes of extolling his achievements after a year back in office, he said “certain places in Europe are not even recognizable, frankly, anymore.” That was just for starters.

His hour-plus-long speech at the World Economic Forum was laden with insults about Europe’s military capabilities, its economy and its culture, saying countries in the region are “destroying themselves.” He also slammed Europe’s support for Ukraine, even though since Trump’s election, Europe has picked up most of the burden of supplying Ukraine with weapons.

Trump offered some reassurance about fears he would start a war with NATO over Greenland. In the wake of yesterday’s sharp drop in the financial markets, Trump pointedly said he will not use force to take Greenland.

But he also insisted he is seeking “title and ownership” of the Danish territory, arguing the U.S. is the only country that can guarantee its security. In Trump’s speech, he sounded more like a real estate tycoon than a head of state, saying, “You can’t defend it on a lease. Number one, legally, it’s not defensible that way, totally. And number two, psychologically, who the hell wants to defend a license agreement or a lease.”

Hours later, Trump announced what he called a “framework” for a NATO agreement “with respect to Greenland” and the Arctic. He also backed off his threat to impose tariffs on eight European countries that opposed his push to acquire Greenland.

Among the list of grievances in Trump’s Davos speech, perhaps the most discordant to believers in the trans-Atlantic alliance were his comments about NATO. He told the predominantly European audience, “What we have gotten out of NATO is nothing, except to protect Europe from the Soviet Union and now Russia,” while later adding, “the problem with NATO is that we’ll be there for them 100%, but I’m not sure that they’d be there for us.”

The only time in its 76-year history that NATO invoked its Article 5 guarantee of collective defense was after 9/11, in defense of the U.S. And Denmark lost more troops fighting for the U.S. in Afghanistan than any other ally.

Trump also called out Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney for not being “grateful” to the U.S. when he addressed the gathering yesterday. “Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, Trump said. “Canada lives because of the United States.”

Carney had said during his remarks, “We are in a rupture, not a transition,” while warning against “great powers” that abandon “even the pretense of rules and values.”

With the European Union’s legislative body halting approval earlier today of a hard-fought trade agreement with the U.S., Carney’s blistering speech appeared to be resonating with his fellow leaders more than Trump’s criticisms.

➡️ Related read: Doubting U.S. resolve, Europe looks to bolster its own nuclear arsenal, by Dan De Luce and Keir Simmons

Trump touts 'extraordinarily high economic growth.' The numbers paint a mixed picture.

By Kayla Steinberg and Christine Romans

One year into his second term, President Donald Trump declared that the United States is the “hottest country anywhere in the world.”

Speaking at the World Economic Forum today, Trump said the U.S. is seeing “virtually no inflation and extraordinarily high economic growth.”

While the American economy has proven resilient, the numbers paint a mixed picture

Jobs: Trump promised in the spring that his protectionist economic policy would mean “jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country.” But that hasn’t happened yet.

Job growth slowed dramatically last year, with just 584,000 jobs added in 2025. This was sharply lower than each of the previous four years under his predecessor Joe Biden, which saw more than 2 million jobs added every year.

Productivity: On the other hand, U.S. productivity grew by more than what many economists had predicted last year.

Real gross domestic product, or GDP, increased at an annual rate of 4.3% in the third quarter of 2025, according to an estimate in December by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. That amounted to the largest quarterly increase since the third quarter of 2023.

Prices and spending: Consumer spending over the last year has increasingly been driven by wealthier Americans, while many lower- and middle-income households have pulled back in order to absorb higher costs of living.

Overall, prices rose 2.7% in December from the same month a year before. That’s above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target but a strong improvement from the high-water mark of 9% inflation post-pandemic.

Market gains: Trump also has taken credit for a series of record-breaking new highs for the stock market.

Indeed, major indexes have set new records in Trump’s second term, with the S&P 500 and the Dow both closing at all-time highs as recently as Jan. 12. The S&P 500 gained 13% during the first year of Trump’s second term. But that number does not stand out when set against the market gains during other recent presidents’ first years in office.

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