Trump's Greenland ambitions dominate Davos
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How is Trump’s Greenland plan overshadowing the World Economic Forum in Davos?
The Greenland dispute overshadows the World Economic Forum in Davos. Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. I'm William Lee Adams. Good morning. It's day two of this year's Davos conference. While President Trump is due to speak at the Swiss resort on Wednesday, his pronouncements over Greenland are already weighing heavily on the agenda. European leaders have continued to push back on potential tariffs for countries opposing U.S. ownership of the island, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling it a mistake. But despite the threats, Gary Cohn, a former senior economic advisor to Donald Trump, says Greenland will stay Greenland. He's been speaking to the BBC's Faisal Islam.
President Trump's extraordinary attempt to project military and economic power over NATO allies towers like the Swiss Alps over this year's gathering in Davos. BBC News was told of a meeting between America's business and political elite where concerns about Mr Trump's designs on Greenland were expressed clearly. One participant, Gary Cohn, now a tech titan for IBM, gave candid detail.
The administration is running down a path, and I think they may have various different motives for what they're doing. I think Greenland will be happy to have a larger military presence there. But I think invading a country that doesn't want to be invaded, that's part of a militaristic alliance, NATO, seems to me to be a little bit over the edge at this point.
With President Trump's Treasury Secretary warning Europe not to retaliate, but tariff wars in the air, concerns are returning about the world economy and inflation, as well as radical instability. All this, and it's only day two of Davos. Day three brings President Trump himself.
Faisal Islam reporting. The threat of additional tariffs is already starting to unsettle businesses. Duncan Edwards is the chief executive of the trade body British American Business. He says there's still time to avoid more trade disruption.
Having lived through the tariffs that were introduced last year and just about reached a position of stability, albeit one that is worse than what went before, To have the threat of new tariffs suddenly coming as a New Year's present is extremely unhelpful. I personally think we still have a very good chance that this doesn't happen. It feels like Trump is exerting maximum pressure to bring negotiations about. And it's a long time until February the 1st when these are set to be introduced.
Duncan Edwards from British American Business there. This morning, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant told reporters in Davos that the worst thing that European states could do would be to escalate the row by imposing retaliatory tariffs. Okay, let's do the numbers. Those tariff threats continue to pressure European markets. The pan-European Stoxx 600 fell 0.7 percent a day after its sharpest intraday decline in two months. Elsewhere, French carmaker Renault said that sales rose 3.2 percent last year, driven by deliveries outside of Europe. Japan's Minister for Tourism Yasushi Kaneko says more than 42 million foreign visitors came to the country last year, setting a new record. However, in the last few months of the year, the number of Chinese tourists fell sharply, as Mr. Kaneko explained.
The number of visitors from China in December decreased by around 45% compared to the same month the previous year. However, the total number of visitors from all countries and regions increased year on year for December, reaching a record high of approximately 3.6 million.
Japan's tourism minister Yasushi Kaneko. You'll probably have heard of ghosting in the world of dating, but the same trend is now happening in the jobs market, with some employers failing to respond to candidates or posting roles that don't even exist. The BBC's Megan Lawton has more.
When Eric Thompson was made redundant from his tech job in Washington, D.C., he expected the hunt for a new role to be tough, but he didn't anticipate being ghosted.
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