Davos 2026: Day 3, with Katty Kay

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Robin Pomeroy: Welcome to Radio Davos, coming to you on Day 3 of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026. It's Wednesday, the 21st of January, Day 3. Give us a few minutes and we'll give you the rundown of what's happening in Davos today.

On your favourite podcast platform or the Forum Live app, this is Radio Davos.

I'm Robin Pomeroy and joining me to look forward to day three is one of the hosts of The Rest is Politics US, Katty Kay, US Special Correspondent for the BBC. Hi, Katty, how are you? Hi, good to be here. It's very good to have you here. It's day three. You could say this is the main event.

Katty Kay: Main event day. Do you know why I'm saying that? This is Trump Day. We're all waiting for Storm Trump to blow through Davos.

Robin Pomeroy: I mean, it's not officially, I should say, as I work on behalf of the World Economic Forum, it's not officially Trump Day, and we will mention some other things, but let's get straight to the heart of it. Donald Trump, the President of the United States, will be making a special address at 2.30 this afternoon. Katty Kay, you're embedded in Washington, you must know what he's going to say.

Katty Kay: Look, I think it's a really interesting question because you don't know with Trump whether he's going to arrive here and be conciliatory or whether he is going to arrived here and ratchet up tensions even further with the Europeans over the Greenland issue.

I know that there have been conversations amongst Republican senators who have been trying to push him to kind of row back on Greenland. There is no appetite, I am told, by a senior Republican senator who's close to the president for military action in the Senate. They don't want America to take over Greenland.

But the very fact, Robin, that we're having this conversation here on Day 3 of Davos about whether America might. And I interviewed Senator Chris Coons, who led a delegation to Copenhagen this week and a Democratic congresswoman. And I started off by asking them, is America about to takeover Greenland? I mean, the fact that you and I are having this conversations is pretty bonkers, isn't it?

But I don't think I can say to you with 100% certainty which way Trump is going to go. And it'll be super interesting. And of course, all the Europeans are desperate to hear what he's going to say to them.

Robin Pomeroy: It's almost surprising to hear you say he might be conciliatory. Why do you think he would be?

Katty Kay: So the case for America taking over Greenland strategically is not a strong one. I mean, they can expand the military bases there if they want to, the U.S. military base. If they wanted mining rights in an area of the country, it's difficult to mine for rare earth minerals in Greenland, but Denmark and the Greenlanders would say, yup, sure, go ahead.

So there's not much to be gained by taking over Greenland, and there's a lot to be lost. I mean the breaking up of these alliances, and it would really test the NATO alliance, it would test the alliance with Denmark, which has been a stalwart ally of the United States. Danes died fighting alongside America and Afghanistan. So it would really test America's alliances.

And I think there is a realisation, certainly amongst the Republican party and amongst many Americans, as the polls show that Americans really don't want a military venture in Greenland. The president has quite the capacity to row back. And we've seen him do this often. I mean, he imposed massive tariffs and rowed back from the massive tariffs. And he can do that.

So this could be an occasion where he decides, okay, take a win, find some kind of negotiated settlement with the Danes over Greenland, get the mining rights, get the expansion of the military bases, get access to the Arctic that way, and call it a win. And he's capable of doing that.

What I think people are nervous about, the senators and the members of Congress that I've spoken to, Republicans and Democrats, are nervous about is that he may have decided he really wants to do this and the Danes don't want to sell Greenland and that we are on some sort of a collision course and we don't really know where that ends and he may come here and the tone of his text messages and the tone of his truth social posts has been pretty inflammatory over the last few days and that be the tone he comes here with.

Robin Pomeroy: Do you think he'll stick to his script? Because sometimes he goes off piste, doesn't he?

Katty Kay: Look, I think he'll stick to the gist of the speech. Yeah, if the script that he is agreed to, of course he'll go off script at some point. I mean, he doesn't like a prompter, auto-queue. He's much more relaxed when he's ad-libbing. And he'll have a script that will be loaded up for him in the auto- queue and he'll deviate from it. But the gists of it will be the gits of it. And we will find out pretty quickly what frame of mind he's in.

Robin Pomeroy: There's been some trailing that he might announce economic policies, perhaps domestic economic policies. Are you expecting that?

Katty Kay: I think that's quite possible, yeah. I mean, he needs, there are various ideas floating around about, you know, tax relief, making the tariffs permanent and giving Americans a big tax break.

There are more tariff policies, obviously, that he could be announcing. There are issues he could do on healthcare, for example, that he might want to announce. And I guess this would be as good a forum as anywhere. He always has a big audience wherever he speaks, but this is a big global audience. It's also a big American audience. This will be replayed. Now 2.30 in the afternoon, I know because I do an American morning show, 2. 30 in the afternoons, 8.30 East Coast time, 5.30 West Coast time. So people will be waking up in America, going to work and they'll get clips or even if they don't hear it live, they'll certainly get clips during the day. So it'll have an impact domestically as well.

Robin Pomeroy: Let's have a look at other things going on during the day today. You mentioned you talked to US members of Congress. We've got at 10.15 this morning conversation with US state governors, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Andy Beshear, if I'm saying that right, of Kentucky and Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma. What will they have to say? Because we're so used to everything's through Donald Trump and through maybe the handful of people around him. The rest of the world doesn't really get to hear many people like this.

Katty Kay: It's interesting, I'm actually going to interview Governor Stitt as well after he's spoken at the plenary session. Governors and mayors have such an important role in America and a lot of the things that the international community cares about, things particularly around sustainability and climate are actually done through governors, through states, and they have an outsized role in that.

But you're right, Donald Trump has sucked up so much of the oxygen. Not just in American news, but God, I mean, you know, all of my colleagues around the world are saying, we want to come to America because it's the only story in town. I mean everybody, Donald Trump has this amazing capacity to keep the plot changing on his reality, on this kind of reality show background that he brings to the presidency. So I think it's actually going to be super interesting to hear from these three governors on issues like immigration, international development, climate in particular. Because we're not hearing much about any of those subjects. Will they bring those subjects up? Will they talk about what their states are doing on climate?

These are two of those governors, the Democrats, Beshear and Whitmer, no big secret that they're thinking of running for the presidency in 2028. So they are speaking very much from that party background. Governor Stitt has been very interesting, comes from a very conservative state, Oklahoma, but has also broken with the White House on certain immigration issues. And ICE issues, the rounding up of people in the country who are there illegally in the United States, which has been such a big, hot political issue. So it's going to be interesting to see if they talk about that. Interesting to see how they interact together because there's such polarisation in America that just having Democrats and Republicans on the stage in a global setting is in itself going to be interesting to watch.

Robin Pomeroy: That's a great insight. I wasn't sure whether I was going to watch it because there's so much else going on, but I will. That's at 10.15 this morning.

Here's another great session. Unfortunately, it's also at 10 15. The good news is you can watch all of these on catch up. And this one's called, Can Europe Defend Itself? Katty, I'll tell you who's speaking here. Mark Rutte, Secretary General of NATO, and also the President of Poland, the President if the European Investment Bank. The chief executive of Sanofi and the president of Finland, Finland and Poland really on the front line. If Europe is worried about Russia, of course it is. There's a war going on in Ukraine and they're relying on NATO. Well, two presidents, the head of NATO, the whole Greenland issue is putting the future of NATO into question. What do you think is going to be in that session?

Katty Kay: Look, I think that's also going to be a very, another interesting one, kind of quick memo to Mark Rutte: When you send your text to Donald Trump, you can fully expect him to end up on the world stage because he's done it once and then he did it again and they both times, they've, you know, now twice, Donald Trump has published personal texts from Mark Rutte, which were very flattering of the American president. Maybe that's the way that the secretary general feels he needs to go.

But the big discussion that I've had with European business leaders and European politicians who I've spoken to while I've been here has been this idea of, is the relationship between Europe and the United States - we heard Ursula van der Leyen address this - permanently changed? She said, nostalgia is part of the human condition, but nostalgia isn't enough to kind of bring about real change and make the past the future.

And I think Europeans have realised they have to defend themselves. I've been saying this for years. Europe can't keep picking up the phone, dial 911 America and say, come to our rescue. They've got to take care of their own security. And I think the Europeans understand that now.

Obviously, it's complicated because of the makeup of the European Union and the many different countries involved. But I think what you're going to hear, what I will be listening to in that session, Robin, is a sense of urgency. And how much is a vocal sense of emergency being matched by financial commitments, coordination between the different countries, appropriations between them, making sure that, you know, if Poland buys aircraft, then actually it can be supplied by another NATO non-American country or another European country. How much are they doing on the intelligence? How much they're doing on communications? All of those backend things that Europe still relies on, that Ukraine still relies from the United States, how much are actually, how urgent are they and how quickly can they get this done? Because whoever is elected in the United State in 2028, the relationship between Europe and America has changed. And Europe has to do something about it.

Robin Pomeroy: That's what I'm hearing over and over again. It will be a big question who's the next president, but whatever happens, things have changed. Irreparably, might not be the right word, but things have changed.

Katty Kay: Things have changed and Europe's going to have to step up on its own defence, so that's a very critical session for people to listen to.

Robin Pomeroy: 10.15, so you can watch that one. It's called Can Europe Defend Itself? If you're on our website, you can scroll through or you can do a keyword search.

A couple of big names from business will be speaking today at 11.30. Jensen Huang, the present CEO of NVIDIA. I think, is that the biggest company in the world?

Katty Kay: I think it still is right now. Yeah. I think they have the biggest market capitalization in the world anyway. It's one of those companies. One of those countries worth billions and billions and billions of dollars. And actually, it's been interesting coming to Davos. I haven't been for about three years. And walking along the promenade, the presence of the big tech companies, particularly the big American tech companies. But in particular, the big AI companies. So there'll be a big audience for Jensen Wang, I'm sure of that, because there is so much focus. T

here are two Davos's, it looks to me like. There's the AI Davos, full speed ahead, full of optimism, gung ho, huge investments being made in data centres all across the United States and other countries trying to catch up. And then there's the geopolitical Davos which is, oh my God, what is happening to the world and are we at the beginning of a major political storm?

Robin Pomeroy: I think you're absolutely right. Those are the two big stories.

Just a couple more sessions before I let you go. One o'clock in the afternoon, conversation with Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. Just another big business name that's bound to get people listening to that.

I wanted to mention a couple of geopolitical ones that aren't exactly related to things we've already discussed. At 3.30 this afternoon, Realignments and Surprises in the Middle East. The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, the UK's foreign secretary, several other very interesting people, Pakistan's foreign minister, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, International Committee of the Red Cross.

Surprises in the Middle East. I mean, we're all looking out for black swan things that could happen, but we know, well, already the Middle Eastern, the Gaza situation is not fully resolved, to put it politely, and maybe that's something that President Trump will be talking about, but also you've got the threat to Iran right now and things happening inside Iran. Do you think this year will be a big moment for the Middle East in general?

Katty Kay: I think America is the big topic at Davos, but certainly there are lots of things happening in the Middle East that we need to keep an eye on. It'd be interesting to listen to the Saudi foreign minister speaking as well.

There was a kind of pushback in the Middle East a week or so ago when President Trump was on the verge of striking Iran, put out that true social post saying we're with you to the Iranian protesters. He got pushed back internally in the United States, but he also got pushed from the Middle east. Interestingly, from Israel, but also from other Arab countries, saying listen, we may be launching something if you do this strike, who knows where it ends, and we don't want that. So, it'll be interesting to hear what they say about Iran, but, also, what they say about Gaza and about the idea of this board that President Trump has announced for Gaza, how much progress can actually realistically be made there. So, a lot of moving parts in the Middle East.

Robin Pomeroy: Talking of Gaza and Palestine at 1.30 this afternoon, it's a conversation with Mohammad Mustafa, who's the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. Talking of Heads of State and Government, we've also got Argentina's Javier Milei today, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, President of Egypt. I'll mention one more before I let you go. At 6 p.m. US and China, where will they land? So, it's all about the US here. But so much about the US is about US and China, isn't it, Katty?

Katty Kay: You know, first time I came to Davos, I think, was 2018, and China was the big topic of conversation. We haven't actually spoken about China as much as I think we should be talking about China at the moment. It's not really mentioned in the American national security strategy that was released in November, as much I think it needs to be.

This is still, we're focused on kind of the relationship between Europe and America, but this century, the big competitive relationship, and we were just talking about Nvidia and chips. The big competitive relationship is gonna be between China and the United States.

United States is in the process of blowing up alliances around the world. It needs those alliances to counter China. The one thing that China hasn't had, hasn't been able to replicate, is America's system of alliances. They're pushing ahead on the technology, they're pushing head on electrification, EVs, even on chips and AI. But they've never managed, it was the asymmetric thing in the relationship. America had alliances. That it built up over time, goodwill had built up over time. China didn't have that. So to the extent that those alliances fray, that's a benefit to China, and they'll know that as well, speaking here at Davos.

Robin Pomeroy: Okay, 6 p.m. For that session on the U.S. And China. Katty, before I let you go, you later today will be in that beautiful podcast booth just outside the plenary hall at the bottom of the big staircase in the Congress Centre with your co-host, Anthony Scaramucci. What will you be recording there?

Katty Kay: So we're going to be recording a bunch of interviews there in the podcast booth with American politicians and American foreign policy leaders. Still got the lineup. We've got Governor Stitt coming on, which will be interesting to hear from. But we're looking forward to that. That's a nice studio you've got in there. Almost as nice as this one.

Robin Pomeroy: The difference between the two is no one can hear what we're saying in here. You know everyone can listen. I know. There are 40 sets of headphones for people. I was doing it earlier today.

Katty Kay: Well, we better not mess it up then.

Robin Pomeroy: Exactly. Wonderful. Katty Kay, thanks very much for joining us on Radio Davos.

You can follow Radio Davos wherever you get your podcasts. It's not just this week. Radio Davos is a weekly show throughout the year, delving into the big issues that the World Economic Forum is tackling and looking at ways to solve some of the world's toughest challenges.

We'll be back tomorrow morning with a briefing on Day 4. Follow it wherever you get podcasts. You can also listen if you're here on the Forum Live app. It goes live at six o'clock in the morning.

But for now, thanks to you for listening. Thanks to Katty Kay from The Rest is Politics US, and see you tomorrow.