Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland at the World Economic Forum in Davos, a fragile cease-fire in Syria, and the United States’ latest seizure of a Venezuela-linked oil tanker.
Trump Pursues His Greenland Ambitions
Global leaders watched with bated breath on Wednesday as U.S. President Donald Trump gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Amid escalating tensions over Trump’s desire for the United States to take ownership of Greenland, the U.S. president said that while he views the semi-autonomous Danish territory as necessary for U.S. security and called for immediate negotiations to acquire it, he would not attempt to seize it by force.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland at the World Economic Forum in Davos, a fragile cease-fire in Syria, and the United States’ latest seizure of a Venezuela-linked oil tanker.
Trump Pursues His Greenland Ambitions
Global leaders watched with bated breath on Wednesday as U.S. President Donald Trump gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Amid escalating tensions over Trump’s desire for the United States to take ownership of Greenland, the U.S. president said that while he views the semi-autonomous Danish territory as necessary for U.S. security and called for immediate negotiations to acquire it, he would not attempt to seize it by force.
Trump outlined his vision to use Greenland as part of a “Golden Dome” of protection that he aims to construct around the United States and Canada and insisted that “no nation or a group of nations is in any position to be able to secure Greenland other than the United States.” He repeated his claim that he has done more for NATO than any other U.S. president, saying the alliance wouldn’t exist if he didn’t “get involved” during his first term.
“All we’re asking for is to get Greenland, including right, title, and ownership, because you need the ownership to defend it,” Trump said. “We’ve never asked for anything. It’s always a one-way street,” he added.
Meanwhile, European leaders appeared to be moving quickly to demonstrate resolve and solidarity with Denmark’s resistance to Trump’s threats, from exploring the potential use of the European Union’s emergency Anti-Coercion Instrument—nicknamed the “trade bazooka”—to sending military personnel to Greenland. On Wednesday, the European Parliament suspended progress on a trade deal reached between Brussels and Washington last summer, citing Trump’s announcement on Saturday that he would impose additional tariffs on Denmark and seven other NATO countries if they refused to allow the United States to buy Greenland.
However, in a surprise development late Wednesday, Trump posted on Truth Social that he and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte “have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region” that “if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations.”
“Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st. Additional discussions are being held concerning The Golden Dome as it pertains to Greenland. Further information will be made available as discussions progress,” Trump wrote, adding that U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and special envoy Steve Witkoff would be among the officials involved in those talks.
Though Trump has seemingly taken the use of U.S. military force off the table in his quest for Greenland, the U.S. Congress has avoided taking significant steps to constrain the possibility in the future. FP’s Rachel Oswald reports that the text of the final package of Congress’s fiscal 2026 spending bills, released Tuesday, does not prohibit the use of federal funds to attack a NATO ally—indeed, it does not even mention NATO or Greenland at all, though the defense spending measure’s accompanying joint explanatory statement does reaffirm “ironclad” congressional support for the alliance.
Still, Trump’s speech reinforced the seriousness of his ambitions to acquire Greenland. “[W]e want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” Trump said. “They have a choice. You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember.”
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
A fragile cease-fire. On Tuesday, a four-day cease-fire took effect between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian government after government forces made significant territorial gains in the country’s northeast over the weekend.
The cease-fire is intended to facilitate negotiations on integrating Kurdish-controlled areas and forces into the Syrian state—a central goal of President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s interim government since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024. Under the terms of the cease-fire agreement, Damascus has said that its troops will not enter the cities of Hasakah or Qamishli while a plan is discussed. However, reports of violence continued on Wednesday, including claims from Damascus that an SDF drone strike killed seven of its soldiers—threatening the prospects for a longer-term agreement between the two sides. (The SDF has denied responsibility for the strike.)
Detention camps holding thousands of prisoners linked to the Islamic State also pose major security concerns as control transitions from the SDF to the Syrian government. Both sides have traded accusations over the escape of around 120 detainees from Shaddadi prison on Monday; Syrian forces have since taken control of the al-Hol detention camp after the SDF withdrew. On Wednesday, U.S. forces transferred 150 detainees from a detention facility in Hasakah to a secure location in Iraq as part of a broader mission to transport up to 7,000 prisoners, according to the U.S. Central Command.
The SDF has been Washington’s principal partner for combating the Islamic State since 2015, but Tom Barrack—the U.S. special envoy for Syria—said Tuesday that the SDF’s role as the primary anti-Islamic State force has “largely expired.” Barrack expressed U.S. support for the integration of Kurdish forces and communities into a unified Syrian state, warning that prolonged separation could fuel an Islamic State resurgence.
Oil crackdown. U.S. military forces seized yet another oil tanker with ties to Venezuela on Tuesday, marking the seventh time that the United States has done so since such operations began in December. The Trump administration has said it has been targeting oil tankers that are under U.S. sanctions or are operating as part of a shadow fleet to transport oil from sanctioned producers such as Venezuela.
“The apprehension of another tanker operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean demonstrates our resolve to ensure that the only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully,” U.S. Southern Command said in a post on X, adding that the apprehension occurred “without incident.”
This tanker seizure represents the latest move in the White House’s campaign to take control of Venezuela’s oil industry, an effort that has only intensified since the Trump administration ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.—Christina Lu
Another sentencing in Seoul. Former South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo was sentenced on Wednesday to 23 years in prison for playing a key role in former President Yoon Suk-yeol’s imposition of martial law in December 2024. The Seoul Central District Court found Han guilty of engaging in an insurrection that “could have pushed South Korea back into dictatorship,” according to presiding judge Lee Jin-kwan.
Han became acting president after Yoon was impeached by South Korea’s National Assembly. Han was then briefly suspended and later reinstated during a Constitutional Court investigation that found no evidence against him. He later failed to secure the presidential nomination from Yoon’s People Power Party ahead of the June 2025 presidential election. In November, a special counsel appointed to investigate Yoon’s declaration of martial law brought charges against Han.
Han is the first official to be convicted on charges directly related to Yoon’s martial law decree, and he received a sentence eight years longer than the 15 years sought by prosecutors. The ruling could signal further trouble for Yoon, who was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison for charges that included obstructing investigators’ attempts to detain him last year and is set to face final judgement on charges of attempted insurrection—for which prosecutors have requested the death penalty—on Feb. 19.
Odds and Ends
Your name could orbit the Moon this spring. NASA is offering free sign-ups to join an SD card aboard the Orion spacecraft as part of the Artemis II mission, the second in a series of “increasingly complex missions that will enable human exploration at the Moon and future missions to Mars,” according to NASA.
More than 2 million people have received digital boarding passes to (symbolically) join three NASA astronauts and one Canadian Space Agency astronaut for 10 days in space. Orion, which reached its launchpad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 17, is scheduled to launch no later than April.
