Putin, Ukraine deal and possible role of China: Takeaways from Trump's speech in Davos

The first part of Trump's opening speech in Davos closely echoed what he said at his inauguration. He then stated that it is already possible to observe the growing confidence of America in itself.

According to him, since he won the election, the US economy has grown by $120 billion, and it has once again become very attractive for investment.

"Oracle, SoftBank, and OpenAI announced a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure. Other companies, likewise, have announced billions and billions and billions — adding up to trillions — of investment in America, in the United States," Trump said.

He also noted that Saudi Arabia is ready to invest $600 billion. "But I’ll be asking the crown prince (referring to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman), who’s a fantastic guy, to round it out to around $1 trillion. I think they’ll do that because we’ve been very good to them," he said.

What will US relations with other countries be like?

Trump addressed world leaders with a call to lower interest rates.

"I’ll demand that interest rates drop immediately... I think a lot of things are happening to a lot of countries. They say that there’s light shining all over the world since the election. And even countries that we aren’t particularly friendly with are happy because they understand what — there is a future and how great the future will be. Under our leadership, America is back and open for business," he emphasized.

According to him, the new administration will "demand respect" from other countries.

"Canada. We have a tremendous deficit with Canada. I say, 'You can always become a state, and if you’re a state, we won’t have a deficit.' But Canada has been very tough to deal with over the years, and it’s not fair that we should have a $200 billion or $250 billion deficit. We don’t need them to make our cars, and they make a lot of them. We don’t need their lumber because we have our own forests," Trump said.

He added that he wants all countries to treat the US "fairly ." "And — and honestly, good things are going to happen for the world, and good things are going to happen for the people that are dealing with us — allies and beyond allies," the president concluded.

Policy towards Europe

In Trump's opinion, the European Union "treats the US very unfairly." He complained about high taxes, tariffs, and the fact that European countries do not accept American goods and products while selling their own in the US.

"They put tariffs on things that we want to do, like, for instance, I think they actually — in terms of these are noneconomic or nonmonetary tariffs, and — and those are very bad, and they make it very difficult to bring products into Europe. So, we have, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars of deficits with the EU, and nobody is happy with it. Friends of mine that are in some of the nations within the EU, great people, they — they want to be able to compete better, and you can’t compete when you can’t get — go through the approval process fast," Trump said.

He criticized lawsuits against US companies.

"They took court cases with Apple, and they supposedly won a case that most people didn’t think was much of a case. They won $15 or $16 billion from Apple. They won billions from Google. I think they’re after Facebook for billions and billions," Trump added.

He also promised to guarantee supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) if European and American companies agree on a deal.

New requirement for NATO countries

"I’m also going to ask all NATO nations to increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, which is what it should have been years ago — it was only at 2 percent, and most nations didn’t pay until I came along," said the US president.

According to him, the US previously covered the gap in defense spending. "It was unfair to the United States. But many, many things have been unfair for many years to the United States," he added.

Peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia

Trump reminded that even before taking office, his team helped facilitate agreements between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages. He hopes that the "beautiful sight" of people returning to their families will continue.

"Our efforts to secure a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine are now, hopefully, underway. Millions of soldiers are being killed. Nobody has seen anything like it since World War II. They’re laying dead all over the flat fields. It’s a flat field — farmland, and there’s millions of Russians and millions of Ukrainians. Nobody’s seen anything like it since World War II," Trump emphasized.

OPEC and Saudi Arabia could have ended the war long ago

In Trump's view, if leading oil producers had lowered oil prices, Russia's war against Ukraine would have ended a long time ago. He likely meant that low prices would have left Moscow without enough money to fund the war.

"I’m also going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil. You got to bring it down, which, frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t do before the election. If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately. Right now, the price is high enough that that war will continue. You got to bring down the oil price; you’re going to end that war. They should have done it long ago. They’re very responsible, actually, to a certain extent, for what’s taking place — millions of lives are being lost," he said.

Meeting with Putin for peace in Ukraine

"I really would like to be able to meet with President Putin soon and get that war end. Millions of lives are being wasted. Beautiful, young people are being shot in the battlefield," said Trump.

He pointed out that there is nothing in the field that can stop a bullet except the human body, and people are dying.

"I’ve seen pictures of what’s taken place. It’s a carnage. And I’m not talking economy, I’m not talking economics, I’m not talking about natural resource. I’m just talking about: There’s so many young people being killed in this war, and that’s not including the people that have been killed as the cities are being, you know, knocked down building by building. So, we really should get that stopped," the US president added.

Can China help stop Russia's war against Ukraine?

Commenting on relations with China, Trump stated that he wants fair play and that the current trade deficit of $1.1 trillion is an unreasonable figure.

According to him, the US does not need "great relations" with China, just fair ones, as with other countries. He mentioned that he likes Xi Jinping but emphasized that America cannot keep making concessions.

"It was very strained with COVID coming out of Wuhan. Obviously, that strained it. But we always had a great relationship, I would say, and we look forward to doing very well with China and getting along with China. Hopefully, China can help us stop the war with, in particular, Russia-Ukraine. And I mentioned that with — during our phone conversation with President Xi, and hopefully, we could work together and get that stopped," Trump added.

Nuclear arsenal reductions of the US, Russia, and China

Trump expressed his desire to make progress in nuclear disarmament during his term. He noted that China's strategic nuclear forces are currently smaller than those of the US, but "they’re going to be catching it at some point over the next four or five years."

"So, we want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think that’s very possible. And I can tell you that President Putin wanted to do it. He and I wanted to do it. We had a good conversation with China. They would have been involved, and that would have been an unbelievable thing for the planet," he said.

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The final question was whether the war between Russia and Ukraine would end before the next forum in Davos in January 2026, where Trump's personal presence is expected.

"Well, you’re going to have to ask Russia. Ukraine is ready to — to make a deal... If I were president, it would never have started. Now you have all these bombed-out cities — they look like demolition sites — with many people killed," he replied, adding that the human casualties in this war could be much higher than anyone thinks.