Trump Tells Europe To Put Its Big Boy Pants On

Every year, world leaders and world leader wannabes gather in Davos to congratulate themselves on their commitment to globalization, or shutting down coal plants, or anti-racism, or whatever.

The Davos summit is the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), a think tank founded by Klaus Schwab. Davos claims it is “committed to improving the state of the world.” Certainly, European WEF members would like to think they’re improving the state of the world — even as they plunge their native countries into crisis. (RELATED: Davos Elites No Longer Pretending Their Globalist Shindig Helps Anyone But Themselves)  

President Donald Trump has interrupted the self-indulgent theatrics with typical Trump panache. 

The Washington Examiner’s chief political correspondent, Byron York, summarized Trump’s message to Europe in four points.

In the first place, “Trump told Europe: You’re killing yourself with mass migration. Stop.” Migration remains a top issue for European leaders and voters, with countries competing to take less migrants than their neighbors.

In the second place, Trump told the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), “You’ve got to spend more on your own defense.”

In the third place, “Trump told the [European Union]: You’re hurting yourselves with draconian regulations.”

Finally, “Trump told Merkel and others: Don’t build Nord Stream 2. It’s a terrible idea to depend on [Russian President Vladimir Putin] for your energy.” 

“The explosion of prosperity…and progress that built the West did not come from our tax codes—it ultimately came from our very special culture,” says @POTUS in Davos.

“We have to defend that culture, and rediscover the spirit that lifted the West from the depths of the Dark… pic.twitter.com/kK7eXJbopD

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 21, 2026

Defenders of the “rules based international order” were predictably distressed by these messages. Or rather, distressed by the tone in which they were delivered.

“We believe that relationships between partners and allies should be managed in a cordial and respectful way,” António Costa, the president of the European Council, said Thursday, according to Euronews.

Or, my honest translation: Yes, we’ve flooded our nations with unassimilated and hostile populations, and yes, we can’t defend ourselves, and yes, we have no plan as regards the economy or energy — But couldn’t you be a little nicer about it?

China is taking advantage of international tensions by pitching itself as a reliable ally to Europe. “Tariffs and trade war have no winners,” said China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng to the WEF on Tuesday.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned NATO allies to “not be naive” in a conversation with Bret Baier, saying, “These huge investments the Chinese are making in the military are not there to organize parades in Beijing.”

Left-wing media referred to Trump’s Davos speech in terms of “humiliation,” as journalist Matt Taibbi noted. Taibbi emphasized Department of Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick’s speech in which Lutnick claimed, “Globalization has failed the West and the United States of America.”

“It’s a failed policy. It is what the WEF has stood for, which is export offshore, far-shore, find the cheapest labor in the world and the world is a better place for it. The fact is, it has left America behind. It has left the American worker behind. And what we are here to say is that America First is a different model — one that we encourage other countries to consider — which is that our workers come first. We can have policies that impact our workers.” 

The Trump administration’s blunt approach may be precisely what Europe needs.

German Chancellor Freidrich Merz admitted to the WEF that Germany and the EU have “wasted incredible potential” in a speech Thursday.

Merz castigated Germany and the EU for “dragging feet on reforms and unnecessarily and excessively curtailing entrepreneurial freedoms and personal responsibility.”

“We must reduce bureaucracy substantially in Europe” Merz continued. “The single market was once created to form the most competitive economic area in the world. Instead, we have become the world champion of over-regulation. That has to end.” (RELATED: Germany Finally Admits Nuking Its Energy Sector For No Reason Was A Bad Idea)

Howard Lutnick speaks in Davos at the WEF: “When America shines, the world shines. Close your eyes and think of a world without America in it. It becomes pretty dark pretty darn quickly.”

pic.twitter.com/hcSVNWLhrc

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 23, 2026

“President Donald Trump’s Greenland fiasco has done Europe an unintended favor. His erratic bullying has forced European leaders to recognize that they need independence from an unreliable America — and to break with their own moribund economic and security policies,” writes David Ignatius, opinion writer for The Washington Post. (RELATED: Trump’s Greenland Fixation Is Crushing The European Right)

Ignatius frames Trump as a blundering bully. But Ignatius might consider that Trump knows exactly what he’s doing. It seems implausible that Trump is shooting in the dark and consistently hitting the bull’s-eye. 

Rutte praised Trump’s strategy in regards to defense spending. 

“I’m not popular with you now because I’m defending Donald Trump, but I really believe you can be happy that he is there because he has forced us in Europe to step up, to face the consequences that we have to take care of more of our own defense,” Rutte told the Davos crowd Wednesday.

“No way, without Donald Trump, this would never have happened. They’re all on [two percent] now,” Rutte said in a later panel.

The two percent figure refers to a 2014 agreement between NATO allies to spend two percent of GDP on defense. Many failed to meet that number. NATO allies agreed to invest five percent of their annual GDP into defense in December 2025. 

“I’m absolutely convinced without Donald Trump you would not have taken those decisions, and they are crucial, particularly for the European and the Canadian side of NATO to really grow up in the post-Cold War world,” Rutte said.

Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC