[Salon] Trump crashes Davos

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🏈 Plus: Hoosier heroics | Tuesday, January 20, 2026

By Mike Allen · Jan 20, 2026

🗓️ Happy Tuesday, and welcome back! President Trump's inauguration was one year ago today ... 1,096 days to go.

1 big thing: Trump crashes Davos

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

DAVOS, Switzerland — President Trump will depart for Davos tonight feeling more confident than ever in his own power to shape global events, and more willing to bully and berate anyone who stands in his way, Axios' Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo write.

• Why it matters: Trump is no longer content just dominating the U.S. and the news cycle — he wants to dominate the world.

🖼️ The big picture: Trump is heading to Switzerland after threatening tariffs on Denmark and seven other NATO allies — all of whom sent small troop detachments to Greenland — if no deal is reached to hand the island to the U.S. by Feb. 1.

• While in Davos, he'll announce he's expanding the remit of his "Board of Peace" for Gaza beyond the enclave, in what some alarmed allies see as an attempt to establish a rival UN Security Council — with Trump holding the only veto.
• "The Board of Peace is not going to be limited to Gaza. It's a Board of Peace around the world," a senior U.S. official told Axios. "The president is focused on our hemisphere first, but he has his eye on the world. I wouldn't say he's fixated on global domination. He's America first. And America is still the world's leader."

Trump's advisers say he's been particularly emboldened by the swift capture of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro.

• "We're holding our breath, but it's definitely freed up the president even more to project power around the world," one top Trump adviser said.

🔎 Zoom in: Until recently, U.S. allies expected Trump's main contributions in Davos to be announcing the board for Gaza and signing a reconstruction deal for Ukraine.

• Instead, they've found themselves scrambling ahead of his arrival, debating how to contain a crisis over Greenland that threatens to rupture NATO. European officials "had to shred their Ukraine talking points and write new ones on Greenland," a Ukrainian official told Axios.

Today's lead stories of The New York Times and The i Paper (London).

📱 Trump set the tone for the week when he texted the Norwegian prime minister to say he'd no longer focus on peace because he didn't win the Nobel Prize. The U.S. later put the note on official letterhead and sent it to NATO ambassadors.

• Trump wrote: "Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America."
• A senior Norwegian official said Oslo had intended to keep the text exchange private and was surprised Trump shared it.

👀 What to watch: The U.S. official suggested attendees of the annual gathering of the global elite should prepare to be insulted when Trump takes the podium tomorrow.

• "In the same way that he went to the UN and said, 'You people charge a lot of dues, occupy a bunch of real estate, really don't do anything,' he's going to probably say that about some subset of those at Davos."

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2. ⚡ How Trump's first year changed America

President Trump boards Air Force One before traveling to Michigan last week. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

To mark the first anniversary of President Trump taking office, we asked Axios subject matter experts a simple question: What's the biggest disruption or change you've seen on your beat over the past year?

1. White House, Marc Caputo: A year in the planning, Trump's ouster of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro crystallized the administration's "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine.

• With no loss of military personnel, the operation emboldened Trump to aggressively pursue Greenland — an idea many believed was just a passing fancy until the Jan. 3 capture of Maduro.

2. Congress, Hans Nichols: Fidelity to Trump has largely defined the 119th Congress, with Republicans in both chambers reluctant to break with the president on major Article 1 issues, ranging from tariffs to military strikes.

• Trump has effectively served as a shadow speaker in the House, determining legislative strategy, whipping votes and showing Republicans they can pass MAGA mega-bills with the thinnest of majorities — as long as they stick together.

3. Economy, Neil Irwin and Courtenay Brown: From interest rates to trade, industrial policy and AI, Trump has wielded the full weight of government to try to shape economic outcomes to his liking — norms and precedent be damned.

• The second Trump administration favors deregulation and lower taxes, but has pivoted sharply from unbridled capitalism, taking ownership stakes in private enterprises and micromanaging corporate decisions from the Oval Office.

4. Business, Nathan Bomey: Trump's second term has pushed corporate America into full "America First" mode — and away from DEI, ESG and other boardroom initiatives targeted by MAGA.

• Global companies like Intel, Nvidia and Pfizer have had to carefully navigate Trump's embrace of command capitalism by offering concessions in exchange for favorable treatment — unthinkable in past Republican administrations.

5. Tech, Ashley Gold: Trump's biggest disruption to AI policy has been the wholesale abandonment of Biden-era caution in favor of near-permissionless growth.

• The shift has emboldened tech companies, raised the stakes of the AI race against China, and sidelined a weakened Congress as Trump drives AI policy himself.

6. Media, Sara Fischer: Trump's first year has brought a sharp retreat in U.S. soft power and press protections.

• Cuts to Voice of America, USAID, and internet freedom programs — alongside Trump's assertion of control over regulators like the FCC — have reshaped the global and domestic media landscape.

7. Health care, Adriel Bettelheim and Maya Goldman: Trump has unleashed the biggest changes to U.S. health care since the Affordable Care Act.

• Deep cuts to federal health agencies and the embrace of RFK Jr.'s sweeping vaccine and regulatory overhauls have upended public health preparedness and weakened long-standing ties between government and the medical establishment.

8. Energy, Ben Geman: Trump has slammed the brakes on U.S. climate and clean energy policy, reshaping markets for EVs, wind and other low-carbon tech.

• Beyond undoing Biden-era subsidies and rules, the White House has deployed federal power to choke off disfavored technologies and rip out climate policy at the roots — going well beyond Trump 1.0.

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3. 💥 Trump's young hard-liners

Data: More in Common. Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals

Gen Z and millennial voters who back President Trump are an increasingly hard-line faction within his coalition, showing strong support for male leadership and religion in public life — and openness to political violence, Axios' Margaret Talev and Russell Contreras write from a massive new survey.

• Why it matters: The survey of 18,000 Americans finds Trump supporters born after 1981 are less invested in consensus politics than previous generations and look more favorably on cultural dominance and strongman leadership.

Share this story ... Full report.

4. 📷 Pic du jour

Photo: Chi Shiyong/VCG via Getty Images

The northern lights — aurora borealis — light up the sky today in Beiji Village, Mohe, the northernmost town in China.

• The aurorae were expected to be visible last night in the northern tier of U.S. states, following a major disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field.

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