During his widely anticipated address at the World Economic Forum, President Donald Trump once more expressed his interest in acquiring Greenland, strongly criticized wind energy projects, and denounced what he described as unfair global trade practices disadvantaging the United States.
He also addressed several internal U.S. political matters, voicing complaints about Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, and former President Joe Biden.
The following examines several notable assertions from Trump’s speech.
The U.S. gave Greenland back
What Trump said: “After the war, which we won, without us, you’d all be speaking German and a little Japanese. After the war, we gave Greenland back to Denmark. How stupid were we to do that? How ungrateful are they now?”
“So we want a piece of ice for world protection. And they won’t give it.”
The facts: The United States never possessed Greenland. In 1941, during World War II, an agreement was signed between the U.S. and Denmark allowing the U.S. to build military bases on the island for its defense against Nazi Germany, while still acknowledging Danish sovereignty over the territory. The island does feature an extensive .
The U.S. pays for NATO
What Trump said: “We pay for NATO. We paid for many years, until I came along, in my opinion, 100% of NATO, because they weren’t paying their bills. ”
The facts: This is a false statement Trump has made persistently since his initial term. NATO data indicates that in 2025, the U.S. funded approximately 16% of the alliance’s budget. That same year, 31 out of 32 NATO member nations are projected to have met the guideline of allocating 2% of their GDP to defense.
China has no wind farms
What Trump said: “China makes almost all of the wind mills, and yet I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China… They make them. They sell them for a fortune…But they don’t use them themselves.”
The facts: According to from the Global Wind Energy Council, China was responsible for 70% of all new wind turbine installations worldwide in 2024. Its total installed wind power capacity exceeded 520 gigawatts, representing nearly half of the global total.
Europe’s energy prices are higher
What Trump said: “Germany now generates 22% less electricity than it did in 2017… and the electricity prices are “64% higher.”
“The United Kingdom produces just 1/3 of the total energy from all sources that it did in 1999.”
The facts: Data from the Fraunhofer Institute shows Germany’s electricity generation was 406.9 terawatt-hours in 2025, a drop of 25% from the 546.9 TWh produced in 2017. Power prices rose by 35%, according to the Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. In the United Kingdom, government indicates the nation generated 285 TWh of electricity in 2024, which is 25% lower than its output in the year 2000.
The 2020 election was stolen
What Trump said: “It’s a war that should have never started and it wouldn’t have started if the 2020 US presidential election weren’t rigged. It was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that. They found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did. ”
The facts: No proof exists that the 2020 election was manipulated. After the vote, Republican officials at the and levels conducted numerous probes into the election results and found . Trump’s former attorney, Rudy Giuliani, falsely accused Dominion Voting Systems of altering results to benefit Joe Biden. Dominion filed a defamation lawsuit against Giuliani, leading to a confidential settlement in 2025. Giuliani was also disbarred in New York and Washington, D.C., for spreading misinformation about the 2020 election.
