Davos 2026: President Donald Trump 1/22/26

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1:04Well, we have a concept of a deal. I think it's going to be a very good deal for the United States, also for them. And we're going to work together on something having to do with the Arctic as a whole, but also Greenland. And it has to do with the security, great security, strong security, and other things. President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. An extended interview with our own Joe Kernan. Forever. Forever? It'll be forever. For Greenland at this point. Yeah, forever. That's staggering. That's better than a 99 year old. Greenland, tariffs, and of course, the next Federal Reserve chair.

1:45They're all good. You know, all three are good. All three would be, I think, good. We have a problem with the man that's there now. He's too late. He's always too late, except when it comes to politics for the other side. Plus a cap on credit card interest rates and the president's plans for Iran.

2:10I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. Squawk Pod reports from Davos 2026. President Donald Trump begins right now.

2:28World leaders, central bankers, finance CEOs, and creatives collide in Switzerland this week. And the one attendee who captured international headlines this year, President Donald Trump. It's great to be back in beautiful Davos, Switzerland. It is, in fact, his second Davos appearance. and thousands of other attendees lined up and waited for seats in the Congress Hall for his around hour-long speech. Of course, this speech was right on the heels of the president's comments this past Saturday before he left for Davos. In a social media post, he said he'd imposed tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries until a deal is reached for the, quote, complete and total purchase of Greenland.

3:19So, naturally, he addressed the Greenland issue in person. The United States alone that can protect this giant mass of land, this giant piece of ice, develop it and improve it and make it so that it's good for Europe and safe for Europe and good for us. And that's the reason I'm seeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States. He did say that he won't use force. That's probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force. Now, after this speech, the president met with NATO Secretary General and subsequently posted on True Social that those tariffs he had threatened, they were called off.

4:08Quote, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic region. Not long after that, President Trump spoke with our own Joe Kernan to clarify some of his comments and to break even more news. Mr. President, it's great to see you. Thanks for the time. Nice seeing you, Joe. I threw away all my questions. One question I had, we did this five years ago. I don't think you reflect too much because you're looking forward, but can you believe what's happened in the world and what's happened to you over the past five years? I just can't help but think that it's been just something to reflect.

4:48It's incredible, the five years. Thank you very much. It's been a great ride. We've had a lot of fun, and nothing's easy in life. But you keep at it. We have a tremendous economy going right now, and we have a country that's the hottest country anywhere in the world. And this took place over one year. We just celebrated the first years, you know. Here's how I was going to start. I was going to say it was very compelling in terms of talking about what you've done in the first year domestically, but also very compelling in the case you made about Greenland. So I was going to ask you, did you see any of your European cohorts nodding?

5:24But I guess I don't have to ask that now because of the news that breaks very quickly. Can you go into what you just talked about with the NATO meeting? Well, we have a concept of a deal. I think it's going to be a very good deal for the United States, also for them. and we're going to work together on something having to do with the Arctic as a whole, but also Greenland, and it has to do with the security, great security, strong security, and other things. The mark of 600 points, getting back a lot of some of the nervousness we had in the last couple of days. The tariffs are off. Nothing happens on February 1st.

5:58No, we took that off because it looks like we have pretty much a concept of a deal. A deal of ownership, a deal... Well, it's a little bit complex, but we'll explain it down the line. But the Secretary General of NATO and I and some other people were talking, and it's the kind of a deal that I wanted to be able to make. Where does Denmark, did they weigh in on what they want, what they would agree to? Well, I assume they did because he very much represents, he's a strong leader. Mark, you know Mark, Witte. And I assume he's been speaking to them, he's been speaking to all of them. Are mineral rights involved?

6:35Is ownership involved? Did the Golden Dome sway people? I don't want to say. I don't want to say yet. The Golden Dome was very compelling today when you talked about that. Yeah, yeah, the Golden Dome. They're going to be involved in the Golden Dome. And they're going to be involved in mineral rights, and so are we. It's not specific enough to know at this point how long this lasts. Forever. Forever? It'll be forever. For Greenland at this point. forever. That's a staggering deal. That's better than a 99-year deal. This is what, two hours after? It's better than the Obama deal with the famous Iran nuclear deal with a nine-year deal.

7:17No, this is forever. This is a long-term. I mentioned that you could have come over here and just talked about what you wanted to, before you left, I think you wanted to talk about the progress that you've made in terms domestically with the economy and everything else in the United States. And you didn't have to talk. I didn't think you had to talk about Greenland, but you're always moving on to the next thing. In the speech I gave, I talked a lot about Greenland because we need it for security, and now we're going to have even better security, I think, than I would have had before. I know how you operate.

7:47I know that you didn't take force off of the table, but all along I think if there was going to be a war, it was going to be a trade war. Is that fair to say? I think so, yeah. I don't see us fighting with that mark. You've done so much to try to strengthen NATO. I'm sure you don't want to see the dissolution. No, no. I'm proud of NATO from the standpoint. Look, I brought them up from 2 % to 5 % of GDP. They're paying a lot of money. They pay us a lot of money because they buy missiles and they buy a lot of things. unfortunately Obama gave them 350 billion dollars for Ukraine which was just terrible I mean it was the whole thing was terrible it should have never happened that's a war that should have never happened but yeah they paid a lot of money and uh I don't know if you know but I signed a rare earth deal with Ukraine to probably get most of that back maybe more more back than we have in but what they did they were just giving out money like cookies to a child I know how much you've done today, so I'm going to bounce from thing to thing.

8:48When we talked about geopolitical concerns today, we also mentioned Iran. And I made the point that I never thought that Greenland, that geopolitical events would include an actual shooting war. Iran's a different case. It could be tariffs, which you've already announced for Iran. Could be further action than what we've already seen. Could be. Most people think that you probably prevented the loss of I don't know how many lives for some of the protesters. Thousands, thousands more than that. Was that the end of the story though? Well they had one thing specifically that really got me. They were going to hang, hang the old-fashioned hanging.

9:30They were going to hang 837 people on Thursday and I told them You can't do that. If you do that, it's going to be bad. I don't want to go exactly what I said, but nasty. And they canceled it, hopefully permanently. Those tariffs are still on, including China. Has China responded to the country? Sanctions, sanctions. 25 % for anyone who does business with Iran. And that will go forward. Yeah, that's going forward. That will go forward. There are assets moving into the Gulf, obviously, carriers and other things. So a lot of people are wondering whether that's a prelude to further action. Well, we hope there's not going to be further action, but, you know, they're shooting people indiscriminately in the streets.

10:13And they were going to look, this was a big thing for me, they were going to hang 837 mostly young people. When you did successfully hit Fordo, you got a lot of grief from the Democrats for doing it. Now the grief is, oh, you promised to do something in Iran. Now they want you to do, or they're at least finger pointing, say you said you were going to help the protesters, and now you're not. So you can't win. Well, we had, look, we had, of course, you can. I mean, if I came up with the cure to cancer, they'd say, why didn't you do it faster? If you walked on water, you can't swim. It's, look, they're sick people.

10:45They really are. They are, we call it Trump derangement syndrome. Should we stay tuned in Iran? I guess that's my question. I guess. I mean, look, it's a rough place. It's a place that we hit very hard with the nuclear, ending the nuclear. They would have had a nuclear weapon long ago. It's actually already turned. They would have had a nuclear weapon probably a month after we hit, had we not hit. And we hit them on the B-2 bombers. We just ordered 25 additional B-2 bombers. They were unbelievable. Those things are, they were totally undetectable. They were undetected. And think of it with no moon in the dark of night, late in the evening.

11:25every single one of those bombs, and they're giants, every single one of those bombs hit its targets and just obliterated the place. So we're going to find out where they are now about what they're going to do with nuclear. They can't do the nuclear. You know, the one thing I've been strong on, they can't do the nuclear. Now, this attack that we did at the time, which is now a little bit older than what happened in Venezuela recently, which was equally as good, but the attacking Iran. If they do it, it's going to happen again. They've got to stop with the nuclear. They keep experimenting with nuclear, and at some point they're going to get the idea that they can't do that.

12:02They're just not going to be able to do that. Can't let them have it. Something else that we might find out in the near future is the replacement for J-PAL. It's true. I just saw Mr. Hassett, who I have a pretty good relationship with. He's fantastic. I like actually keeping him where he is to one another tooth. I don't want to listen. He's so good on television. It seems to be a great time to give us more. He's so good on television. Are we down to two now? Are we down to – I heard Rick Reeder had a strong – I'd say we're down to three, but we're down to two, and I probably can tell you we're down to maybe one in my mind.

12:37Did Rick Reeder impress you in recent – Very impressive. Yeah, he's been there for – Because for a while the betting markets had worse in the lead. Well, Rick is very good. They're all good. You know, all three are good. all three would be I think good. We have a problem with the man that's there now. He's too late. He's always too late except when it comes to politics for the other side where he was actually too early. Another one person I know you have a great deal of admiration for is your Treasury Secretary. Yeah. He made the point that... By the way he only wants to stay where he is. He's fantastic but Scott only wants to stay where he is.

13:13His point as a real estate guy some people say you always want lower rates, but Scott made the point that if you have productivity gains, whether it's from AI or whether it's from Big Beautiful Bill, whatever it is, that you need a chairman that can't get too agitated about a hot GDP number. In other words, we might be at a point where we could run nominal GDP of 8 % or, you know, after inflation of five and a half, but that doesn't mean that it's inflationary and that you need to raise rates. So if you considered someone one that could be like a Greenspan in the 90s? Well, that's what I want.

13:49I mean, right now, if you announce great numbers, the stock market goes down because they say, oh, they're going to raise the rate, they're going to kill it, which really stops you from having any great runs. And we want to have a great run. So we're going to be at five and a half or something. They're predicting, I don't know, it's much higher than they thought. But let's say we're at five and a half. We could be at 10 or we could be at 12. We could be at 15. But immediately when they announce good numbers. Now, in the old days, you're too young. In the old days. You think I am. But 20, I know you look good, whatever you're doing.

14:22But look, Joe, in the old days, when you had a good run, when you had, you'd announce good numbers and the stock market would go up. Now the stock market crashes every time you have good numbers because they think everyone's going to raise rates. And growth is not a cause, a big cause of inflation. In fact, it can go the other the way. So look, we've had tremendous growth and we have almost no inflation. For the last three months, we have 1.2 percent inflation, and yet we've had tremendous growth. Do you at this point have plans for what you would do? And you said you won't fire Jay Powell. Let's say he decides, I'm not going to be pushed around.

14:59I don't like the way it was treated. Whatever he decides. And what if he decides to stay on the Fed? He doesn't need to leave when he's no longer chairman. That That could create a block of four people that still vote. We'll have to, we just, you know, in this world, we live with the cards you dealt. And if that happens, his life won't be very, very happy, I don't think, by doing it. I think he wants to get out. He has not done a good job. He's done a horrible job on buildings. You know, he took a small little complex, the Federal Reserve complex. I could have redone it. I could have fixed it for 25 million bucks.

15:36It would have looked beautiful. I think he's up to almost$4 billion. The most expensive project ever built per square foot. And he's either incompetent or he's crooked, I guess, right? So we'll find out. So if he stays, he stays. If he doesn't stay, he doesn't stay. Do you know what would satisfy? He took this job, and they're up to almost$4 billion for a little building. I'm building this massive ballroom. I'm way under budget. It's going to cost less than$400 million. It's going to cost maybe$300 million for this massive project. He spent, I just built, you know, recently, relatively recently, I built a hotel, now the Waldorf in Washington, and I spent like$250 million.

16:28It's a much bigger complex than the Federal Reserve and much more complex. So I say, how did they spend$3 to$4 billion on this little thing? I could have done it for$25 million, and it would have been nicer than what they're doing. Does Tom Tillis, and I know he's not going to be a senator much longer, but he probably could prevent someone from being voted on while this subpoena is still an issue. Are there just a couple of, do you know anything about what would be necessary for Chair Powell to answer for to where this would be withdrawn so we can move forward? I don't know about Tom Tillis, but he's not going to be a senator until much longer.

17:10But you figure whomever you nominate is going to have an easy. Whatever. I mean, whatever it is, you know, life, whatever. Whatever happens. Because we don't have a lot of time, I was going to needle you a little bit about Senator Elizabeth Warren and a meeting of the minds. That's something that wasn't on my plate. She was very happy with this phone call, I'll tell you. Now, look. You won't be having a lot of policy discussions with her. Probably not. But credit card companies are getting 28%, 30%. These people don't know they're paying that. Right. Is it a one-year? One-year cap of 10%, and I love it.

17:49I know it's sort of like, it sounds like the mayor of New York maybe came up with that. But people are paying. They can't make it. They can't pay 28. You know, whatever happened to usury? They can't pay 28 percent. And so I said, one year, I'd like to see a one year cap of 10 percent with the credit card companies. And they'd understand that. I've had calls from credit card companies, people that are friends of mine, actually. And I treat them good. I respect them greatly. But they make a lot of money. They got to give people a break. 28 percent interest. You know, people go out and they buy something and if they're a little bit late, they're paying 28 percent.

18:26They end up filing for bankruptcy. So I would like to see that happen. So there's, I guess, we're getting toward the end, but there's classic conservatism, there's populism, and I guess there's common sense. Is that how you would describe some of the steps that you make? I mean, people call it statism or that we're getting too involved with managing the private sector. I'm conservative, but I think I'm common sense. You know, it's like people say, are you a conservative? I say, yeah, but I'm a common sense person. I mean, I do things that aren't necessarily that conservative sometimes. And like men in women's sports, okay, people think it's wonderful.

19:08I think it's a horrible thing. I think it's a ridiculous thing. Open borders for everyone so that everybody's prisoners can pour in, where they come in from the Congo, where they come in from all over the world, from Venezuela. And by the way, we picked up 50 million barrels of oil the other day from Venezuela. We're going to sell it at the market price. We're going to give some to Venezuela. We're going to keep some. That's going to be great. You know, we're getting along great with Venezuela. They have tremendous oil and oil reserves and other things, too. And 20 years ago, Venezuela was sort of a pretty hot country.

19:45And now it's going to be maybe hot. By the way, they'll make more money with us than they would have made in 25 years. All these things, the 10 % on the credit cards, the not allowing corporations to buy single-family homes, it all seems to be... They were gobbling up all the homes. It's aimed at affordability, I think, at this point. It's also aimed at common sense again. But they were buying up all the homes. People couldn't buy homes. You have these big companies, these big corporations, buying up thousands of homes and renting them or doing whatever they do with them. Some of them are flipping them for a big profit.

20:23But it got to be too much, too many. It became, you know, it's good investment. And we're not saying take them away, but we're saying that we don't want that. We want people to be able to buy a home. It's been a long day for you, I know, and energetic, more energetic than I am right now. Thank you for the time. You're doing just fine. Thank you for the time, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, you're welcome.

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22:39Thank you for listening to this special Squawk Pod reports from Davos. This is just one of many iconic interviews at the World Economic Forum this year. I promise it's worth following Squawk Pod wherever you're listening now so you don't miss an episode. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin, usually from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square and one week a year from the Snowy Alps. Squawk Pod is produced by me, Cameron Costa, and Zach Valisi. Katie Kramer is in Davos with the anchors, and our editor Julie Trass is working her magic from the States. Have a great day.

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