Chapter 1: What are President Trump's threats over Greenland and their impact on stock markets?
President Trump's threats around Greenland rattle European leaders and U.S. markets.
This reintroduces the possibility that the president could levy tariffs against any country, any way, at any time. And I think that has spooked a lot of investors.
Plus, a new AI coding tool is making developers excited, but also nervous. And Netflix says that revenue and profit grew in its latest quarter as subscriptions topped $325 million. It's Tuesday, January 20th. I'm Alex Oselev for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.
President Trump's threat of tariffs on European allies as part of his effort to get his way over Greenland is causing strong reactions from European leaders.
Chapter 2: How are European leaders reacting to Trump's tariff threats?
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said today that Greenland's sovereignty was, quote, non-negotiable. First principle, full solidarity with Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark. The sovereignty and integrity of that territory is non-negotiable.
She warned of a, quote, dangerous downward spiral in the transatlantic partnership. Meanwhile, Greenland's prime minister said that the island must be ready for the U.S. to resort to military force. And one of Germany's highest-ranking military officers warned that the rift between the U.S. and Europe is making NATO vulnerable to a Russian attack.
The rift could also come with economic consequences. If President Trump does implement the tariffs, some $100 billion worth of American exports, like Boeing planes and bourbon whiskey, could get caught in the crossfire if the EU retaliates. EU officials say they are prioritizing dialogue with the Trump administration to avoid escalating the situation.
Speaking at the White House this afternoon, President Trump didn't back off his desire to acquire Greenland. He expressed confidence that he could reach a deal, saying that he has a lot of meetings scheduled in Davos on Greenland and, quote, I think things are going to work out pretty well. Also in that press conference.
How far are you willing to go to acquire Greenland? You'll find out.
President Trump is expected to head soon to Davos, where he's scheduled to speak tomorrow.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the AI tool Claude Code for developers?
Trump's comments roiled U.S. markets. Major indexes fell sharply, with the Nasdaq tumbling 2.4 percent, the S&P dropping 2.1 percent, and the Dow losing 1.8 percent. The S&P is now down 0.7 percent year-to-date, the first time in 2026 that the index is down for the year. And silver and gold futures hit new records as investors sought safe haven trades.
WSJ Markets reporter Hannah Aaron Lang says we've seen this before.
Basically what we're seeing is a smaller scale version of the dynamic that we saw take place last April when Trump initially unveiled his first round of tariff plans. We're seeing that kind of sell America trade dynamic take shape a little bit again today. It almost feels like tariffs is kind of a trigger word on Wall Street, as one of my sources put it to me today.
Chapter 4: Why are developers excited yet concerned about Claude Code?
This recent development with Trump and his rhetoric about Greenland and fresh tariff threats against European trading partners reintroduces the possibility that the president could levy tariffs against any country, any way, at any time. And this has just sparked some renewed trade war fears on Wall Street and unsettled folks about what could lie ahead in 2026.
In other news, foreign leaders are responding with caution to an invitation to join President Trump's Board of Peace. While the group was established by Trump to support the reconstruction of Gaza, it now has a broader mission to mediate global conflicts. And in remarks at the White House this afternoon, the president cast the Board of Peace as an alternative to the United Nations.
It would carry a $1 billion fee for governments with a permanent seat as members. Around 60 governments have received invitations to join the board. And while the leaders of nations including Belarus, Hungary, and Morocco have said they'll join, some, such as the United Kingdom and Russia, are still deliberating. Others, like France, plan to decline. Coming up, Silicon Valley gets clawed-pilled.
And do supersized CEO pay packages guarantee super results?
Chapter 5: How did Netflix perform in its latest earnings report?
That's after the break. There's a new tool taking the AI world by storm. It's called ClaudeCode, made by the company Anthropic. Developers are using it to complete complex projects much faster. And non-engineers are posting on social media about building their first software program without learning a lick of code.
Even in an age with an abundance of powerful AI tools, Claude has got people buzzing. Brad Olson covers technology for the journal and is here to tell us why. Brad, it's not new exactly that tech companies are using code writing AI in their workflows. What's different about what Claude Code can do? Why are engineers so excited?
So cloud code has existed for a while, and it's something that can write software for any software engineer. And people were always impressed with it. And then in November, Anthropic releases the most updated model of cloud, Opus 4.5. A lot of coders and software engineers are just blown away.
Like they just are starting to say, I can't believe that I just told it what to do, and then it produced software. kind of the workload that I might have done myself in a fairly limited period of time. All these software engineers are talking about it, and then people who aren't coders start to download it.
And not only do they try it for coding and making websites and apps and stuff like that, they also just start using it to do data analysis and other kinds of tasks. And so it's like an awakening of capability that some people are comparing to the moment when ChatGPT was released.
In your story, you write that developers and other users are, yes, very excited about cloud code, but they're also kind of freaked out. Why is that?
One startup executive said, I've been doing this since middle school. And it's just completely shocks me. You know, the person went to Brown Ivy League education and has an expertise that he's built up over his entire life. To see a software program kind of fully automate that or come very close to automating that was just deeply shocking to him.
And are people worried about how this might affect companies hiring decisions?
Obviously, these capabilities are extraordinary, but it's hard to know exactly how companies will respond. You know, do they lay off developers or do they try to get their developers to be 10 times more productive with these tools? We don't know. And every individual company is making its own decisions.
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