“The only thing I think that can move Trump, and hopefully he doesn’t double down on stupid today, are the markets,” Newsom said, pointing to Trump softening his position on global tariffs after last April’s “Liberation Day” announcement rattled markets.
“Remember what happens on the markets impacts every single person he brings over on the plane — Howard Lutnick’s portfolio, Steve Witkoff’s and Trump’s own portfolio. That’s what matters for him,” Newsom said.
Trump has spent the first half of January ratcheting up his threats to seize the massive Arctic island — a self-ruling Danish territory — which would stretch eight decades of the transatlantic relationship to breaking point. European leaders are scrambling to find a plan that would induce Trump to back down, after he announced last weekend he would impose tariffs on countries trying to block him from snagging Greenland.
Newsom said he wasn’t in Davos to position himself as the resistance leader to Trump, although he is a widely discussed contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.
“I’m here to express a different point of view. He’s a historic president. But he’s historically unpopular, and people need to understand that here,” Newsom said. “His policies are undeniably unpopular across the political spectrum in America. Even by his own standards, he’s more unpopular today than he was even in the first term.”
‘War with California’
During his chat with POLITICO, conducted in the Davos Congress Centre, Newsom expanded on his rocky relationship with Trump, with whom he once had a positive relationship.