Trump tells world leaders: ‘Europe is not heading in the right direction’

Trump tells world leaders: ‘Europe is not heading in the right direction’

Published Wed, Jan 21 2026

9:17 AM EST

U.S. President Donald Trump attends the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2026.

Denis Balibouse | Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday some areas of Europe are no longer recognizable — and that the continent was "not heading in the right direction."

Trump lauded what he described as economic growth "like no country has ever seen before" in the U.S. during his highly-anticipated speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"Friends come back from different places – I don't want to insult anybody – and say, I don't recognise it. And that's not in a positive way, that's in a very negative way," Trump said.

"I love Europe and I want to see Europe go good, but it's not heading in the right direction."

His speech comes after global leaders condemned his aggressive approach to seeking to annex Greenland, which he said he would seek "immediate" negotiations over.

Market participants and many U.S. allies raised the alarm about his Greenland position, including at Davos.

Trump, who has long advocated for making the Arctic island a part of the U.S., previously insisting there is "no going back" on acquiring it from Denmark. He threatened to impose a rising wave of tariffs on eight European countries if they continue to oppose his plans.

The U.S. president's increasingly aggressive Greenland rhetoric has ratcheted up trans-Atlantic tensions, with French President Emmanuel Macron warning of a shift to "a world without rules" and decrying "bullies," without mentioning Trump by name.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told Davos on Tuesday that the "old order is not coming back" and warned "nostalgia is not a strategy."

Carney said the new order was "a system of intensifying great power rivalry where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion."

This is a developing story. Please refresh for updates.

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