Walmart is investing $350 billion in US manufacturing. Over two-thirds of the products Walmart buys are made, grown, or assembled in America, like healthy dried fruit from The Ugly Co. The sustainable fruit is sourced directly from fourth-generation farmers in Farmersville, California, and delivered to your neighborhood Walmart shelves. Discover how Walmart's investment is supporting communities and fueling jobs across the nation.
Last week, Microsoft unveiled a new set of commitments guiding its community‑first approach to AI infrastructure development. The strategy focuses on energy affordability, water efficiency, job creation, local investment, and AI‑driven skilling. As demand for digital infrastructure accelerates, the company is pushing a new model for responsible data center growth — one built on sustainability, economic mobility, and long‑term partnerships with the communities that host it. The move signals how AI infrastructure is reshaping local economies and what people expect from the tech shaping their future.
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In a flurry of social media posts last night, US President Donald Trump chastised several of his European counterparts, threatening extra tariffs on specific goods, releasing private text messages, and publishing AI-generated images that displayed Greenland, Canada and Venezuela as American territories. Trump’s late-night barrage follows his Saturday announcement that the US plans to impose an extra 10% tariff on eight European nations over their support for Greenland, beginning Feb. 1. The US leader added to the friction Monday by inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to join the Gaza Board of Peace. Even some of Trump’s right-wing allies in Europe, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the UK’s Nigel Farage, criticized the move. Trump will come face to face with European leaders when he flies out to Davos later today.
After Syria’s government made significant territorial gains into areas controlled by the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) last week, the US-backed Kurdish group agreed to a deal that’s been long in the making. The agreement establishes an immediate ceasefire and folds the SDF into the country’s military forces. The Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, and SDF have sealed pacts before, but the context is different this time: the Kurds are in a much weaker position after recent battlefield losses. Under the terms, the Syrian government will take over much of the semi-autonomous region of Syria that the Kurds had seized during the 14-year civil war that ended in 2024, including the oil and gas fields.
Guatemala's President Bernardo Arévalo declared a 30-day state of emergency after authorities accused criminal gangs of killing eight police officers in a coordinated prison riot. The violence erupted when gang-affiliated inmates at three prisons took 46 hostages, demanding that incarcerated leaders be moved to lower-security facilities. Authorities retook all three prisons Sunday, and the emergency measure suspends assembly rights and permits warrantless arrests. The chaos reflects Guatemala's ongoing struggle with transnational gangs like Barrio 18 and MS-13, which are blamed for driving up the country's homicide rate to double the global average.
We’re also watching the fallout of Sunday’s tragic train crash in southern Spain that has left at least 41 people dead and dozens injured. Authorities who are investigating the cause have found a broken joint on the rails. The high-speed rail network is the second-largest in the world, behind only China.2.7%: The US year-on-year inflation rate as of December. When Trump took office last January, consumer prices were rising at a rate of 3%. Since then, inflation briefly fell to as low as 2.3% – not far from the Fed’s target of 2% – but tariffs and continued high costs for housing and groceries have buoyed the number again. Although the US has seen strong economic growth during Trump’s second term, a majority of Americans say he hasn’t done enough to ease the cost of living.
89%: The drop in the number of law enforcement encounters with undocumented migrants at the southwest land border in the first year of Trump’s second term. Although the White House’s enforcement and deportation policies have generated some backlash – even among his Republican base – the administration has largely succeeded in deterring undocumented migrants from coming to the United States. Net migration is now negative for the first time in half a century.
7: The number of times Trump has changed the overall country-specific tariff on China during his second term. Last year, he announced extra tariffs on Feb. 1, March 3, April 2, and twice on April 9 – they peaked at 145%. He announced a temporary slowdown on May 12, before the two sides clinched a year-long trade truce in October. An eighth change could be in the works if Trump imposes punitive duties on countries that trade with Iran.
1,609: The estimated number of pardons and clemencies Trump has issued over the last year, up from 148 during all four years of his first term. The vast majority of the pardons this time around were for people convicted of crimes for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
8: The number of points that Trump’s approval rating has fallen since he took office last January with a rating of 50%. Trump’s current net rating of -13 points (42% approval against 55% disapproval) is better than he was doing at this point in his first term.
At the 2026 World Economic Forum, GZERO's Tony Maciulis spoke with Matthew Blake, Managing Director at the World Economic Forum, about a defining transition for Davos and the state of the global economy.
With founder and former chairman, Klaus Schwab, no longer leading the Forum (after 55 years), Blake explains how continuity and evolution coexist at a moment of historic uncertainty. From geopolitical fragmentation to record participation by global leaders, he argues that platforms for dialogue remain essential. As Blake describes, Davos is “a place where people can come together, discuss sometimes contentious issues at scale, and try to build bridges to move the world forward together.”
Blake also weighs in on why the global economy has proven more resilient than expected, the risks posed by rising sovereign debt, and how investment in AI could shape the next phase of growth. The key challenge ahead, he says, is ensuring that innovation and opportunity are shared broadly, warning that “a bifurcation of winners and losers is not an acceptable outcome.”
This conversation is presented by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft, from the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The Global Stage series convenes global leaders for critical conversations on the geopolitical and technological trends shaping our world.
See more at https://www.gzeromedia.com/global-stage
Checking in from the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Ian Bremmer breaks down a deepening crisis in the transatlantic relationship as President Trump escalates pressure on Europe over Greenland.
With European leaders already stretched by the war in Ukraine, economic underperformance, and questions about US reliability, Trump’s renewed insistence that the United States must own Greenland has become a defining test of whether Europe can push back, or whether it fractures under pressure.
As Ian explains, the stakes go far beyond trade disputes or Arctic security: “Trump is coming to Davos to meet with a lot of European leaders at a time when he is threatening to rip up the transatlantic alliance and to engage in undermining the territorial integrity of one of its closest, albeit small, allies. Now, if that's the way this ends up, it's the end of NATO.”
Ian also unpacks his framework for understanding Trump’s foreign policy approach: FAFO vs. TACO, and why countries that can credibly push back fare far better than those that can’t.
Ian breaks down what Greenland reveals about leverage, alliance politics, and whether Europe is capable of acting as a unified power in a rapidly fragmenting global order.
How has President Trump reshaped the world since returning to office one year ago? Harvard’s Stephen Walt joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to discuss the biggest changes to the global order as Trump aggressively expands executive power and pushes a much more muscular view of US foreign policy. The general direction of Trump’s policies may not necessarily be a surprise, Walt says, but the “speed and scope” of changes is—from aggressive tariffs and pressure on allies to a willingness to use military force abroad.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
This is not a negotiation over security guarantees, expanded US bases, or Arctic cooperation, all which Denmark and Greenland have said they would accommodate. Instead, Washington has drawn a red line: no deal unless the US owns Greenland outright. That position, reinforced by Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has triggered threats of tariffs against European countries supporting Denmark and raised questions about America’s reliability inside NATO.
European leaders believe this push isn’t really about security or critical minerals. Ian says many see it as a legacy play driven by Trump’s ego and something Greenlanders would never vote for and Denmark will not accept. The deeper risk, Ian warns, is structural: “The more the United States unilaterally undermines the collective security trust of NATO, the stronger the argument becomes that only American territory is truly protected.”
The bigger risk is strategic: by undermining allied trust, the US strengthens the argument that only American territory receives ironclad protection. That logic may appeal in Washington, but it accelerates fragmentation inside NATO and the EU.
With Trump and European leaders heading to Davos, the question is whether diplomacy can produce a climbdown, or whether Greenland becomes the next major rupture in the global order.
In just 12 months, Donald Trump has transformed the presidency—and the world. He returned to the White House with fewer constraints and a more muscular view of foreign policy. Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World for a look at President Trump’s first year back in office and what comes next.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
It’s been a year since President Trump returned to office, this time with fewer constraints, a better understanding of how government works, and a much more muscular view of US foreign policy. This week on the GZERO World Podcast, Harvard’s Stephen Walt joins Ian Bremmer to help answer a simple question with complicated answers: what kind of presidency is he building this time around?
Over the past year, we’ve seen a dramatic expansion of presidential power and a rewriting of America's role in the world. There’s been a retreat from multilateral institutions, targeting of long-standing allies, and a view of global politics where great powers dominate, and weaker ones fall in line. It’s a big departure from 80 years of the postwar order America spent building and leading. How much more will change by the time he leaves office?
“A lot of the things that Trump has done are not surprising in terms of where he's trying to take things. People knew he was going to get tough on tariffs. They knew he was going to be harsh on Europe,” Walt says, “I'm surprised not by the direction things have gone, but by the speed and scope by which things have changed.”
As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, it’s also living through a very different kind of revolution—one being driven from inside the White House. On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down President Trump’s dramatic expansion of presidential power and whether his political revolution will succeed in the long run. Trump returned to Washington with fewer constraints, more confidence, and a much more explicit view of how government (and the world) should work.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
The US and Denmark may be on opposite sides of a potential military standoff now, but that wasn’t the case in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021. Copenhagen supported Washington’s Operation Enduring Freedom, launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, deploying troops in large numbers. As the Graphic Truth shows, Denmark lost almost as many soldiers on a per capita basis as the United States.
7: The number of opposition supporters killed in Uganda last night, after President Yoweri Museveni took a large lead in Thursday’s election. With the majority of ballots returned, Museveni – who is running for a seventh term – is coasting to victory with 75% of the vote, while opposition leader Bobi Wine has 21%.
6.1%: The new Canadian tariff rate on the first 49,000 imports of Chinese electric vehicles, down from 100%. In return, China will slash total duties on Canadian canola from 85% to 15%. The deal came after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney became the first Canadian leader to visit Beijing since 2017.
4: The number of days former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro could shave off his prison sentence for each book that he reads in jail. With President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva blocking efforts to cut Bolsonaro’s 27-year jail term, this presents an alternative option for the ex-leader. However, he may not enjoy everything on the approved reading list, which includes Brazilian works on Indigenous rights, racism, the environment, and government violence during the country’s 1964-85 dictatorship – a regime Bolsonaro openly endorsed.
