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As Clinton and Obama Criticize Trump, the President Blames Democrats for Violence by Federal Agents

President Donald Trump is in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, 2026.

President Donald Trump blamed Democrats for escalating violence after federal agents enforcing his immigration agenda killed another protester on Saturday, which has further fueled rising concern about the direction of the country under Trump.

Alex Pretti, 37, was shot dead by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis, amid protests against federal immigration operations in the state that had ramped up since the killing of 37-year-old Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent just weeks earlier. 

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The Trump Administration has framed Pretti’s shooting as an act of self-defense. The Department of Homeland Security claimed that Pretti “approached” federal officers with a handgun and “violently resisted” their attempts to restrain and disarm him, while White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller on X called Pretti a “would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal law enforcement.” But videos circulating online, which were also analyzed by news outlets, contradicted the Administration’s claims and showed Pretti was holding a phone in his hand before the fatal confrontation. 

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal on Sunday amid public backlash about the killing and the federal government’s response, Trump said that his Administration is “reviewing everything” regarding the incident.

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Then he took to his social media site, Truth Social, to assail Democrats for the violence.

“Tragically, two American Citizens have lost their lives as a result of this Democrat ensued chaos,” he posted Sunday. The President zoomed in on “Democrat run” sanctuary jurisdictions—which limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement—for  “REFUSING to cooperate with ICE” and for “encouraging Leftwing Agitators to unlawfully obstruct their operations to arrest the Worst of the Worst People.”

In a separate Truth Social post, Trump also called on the GOP-led Congress to “immediately” pass legislation that would end sanctuary jurisdiction policies, which he claimed “is the root cause of all of these problems.” He also called on Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis’ Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey, and all Democratic mayors and governors across the country “to formally cooperate with the Trump Administration to enforce our Nation’s Laws, rather than resist and stoke the flames of Division, Chaos, and Violence.”

Trump specifically asked Walz and Frey in his post to turn over to federal authorities the unauthorized immigrants in their state prisons and jails, and those with active warrants or known criminal histories, for immediate deportation.

Ex-Presidents speak out

In the wake of Pretti’s shooting, several high-profile Democrats have doubled down on their criticism of the Trump Administration. 

Former President Barack Obama, whom Trump succeeded in 2017, called Pretti’s killing a “heartbreaking tragedy.” In a statement with his wife Michelle posted on X on Sunday, Obama claimed that Trump and officials in his Administration “seem eager to escalate the situation” instead of “trying to impose some semblance of discipline and accountability over the agents they’ve deployed.”

“This has to stop,” Obama said. “I would hope that after this most recent tragedy, Administration officials will reconsider their approach.” 

Former President Bill Clinton, another Democrat, also said in a Sunday statement on social media that the events in Minnesota were “unacceptable and should have been avoided,” adding that “the people in charge have lied to us, told us not to believe what we’ve seen with our own eyes, and pushed increasingly aggressive and antagonistic tactics.”

“Over the course of a lifetime, we face only a few moments where the decisions we make and the actions we take will shape our history for years to come,” Clinton posted. “This is one of them.”

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Trump Suggests Invoking Article 5 to Get NATO to Help With U.S. Border

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on board Air Force One while flying in between Ireland and Washington as he returns from the World Economic Forum on Jan. 22, 2026.

Donald Trump suggested putting the world’s strongest military alliance “to the test” in his latest social media posting that could have grave consequences.

The U.S. President has long criticized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which also includes 30 European allies and Canada, over his belief that other members don’t pay their fair share.

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“Maybe we should have put NATO to the test: Invoked Article 5, and forced NATO to come here and protect our Southern Border from further Invasions of Illegal Immigrants, thus freeing up large numbers of Border Patrol Agents for other tasks,” Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday night.

Article 5 refers to NATO’s mutual defense clause, which states that an “armed attack” on one member is considered an attack on all 32 member-states. 

NATO says it assesses on a case-by-case basis what triggers Article 5—such as the “invasion by one state of the territory of another state”—but clarifies that “events that lack an international element, such as purely domestic acts of terrorism, do not trigger” the mutual defense clause, even though member states may choose to assist.

In the alliance’s nearly-80-year history, the mutual defense clause has only been invoked once: on the day after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and the U.S.’s NATO allies then backed the American response in Afghanistan, where more than 1,000 non-American NATO soldiers were ultimately killed.

Trump’s latest Truth Social post comes amid his ongoing threat to pull the U.S. out of the alliance

“We’ve never needed them—we have never really asked anything of them,” the President told Fox Business on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on Thursday. “You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that, and they did: they stayed a little back, little off the front lines.”

The day before, Trump, in his meandering speech in Davos, blasted NATO’s seeming unreliability: “I know them all very well. I’m not sure that they’d be there. I know we’d be there for them. I don’t know that they’d be there for us.”

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Trump particularly criticized NATO ally Denmark, as he campaigns to bring Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, under U.S. control. He called the Nordic country “ungrateful” after falsely claiming that the U.S. “gave” Greenland back to Denmark after American forces defended it during World War II. 

But Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general, pushed back Wednesday to assert that NATO did help the U.S. in Afghanistan. 

“For every two Americans who paid the ultimate price,” Rutte said, “there was one soldier from another NATO country who did not come back to his family—from the Netherlands, from Denmark, particularly from other countries.”

Denmark actually suffered the highest per capita deaths among the military coalition members in the Afghanistan conflict: military casualty tracker iCasualties.org lists 43 Danish soldiers killed.

“You are not absolutely sure that the Europeans would come to the rescue of the U.S. if you will be attacked,” Rutte told Trump. “Let me tell you, they will.”

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DHS More Than Doubles ‘Self-Deportation’ Cash Payment but Critics Call Program Deceptive

Undocumented mother Andrea, 28, (L) and her cousin Jennyfer, 22, (R) sleep on their overnight flight to Ecuador from JFK International Airport on Oct. 27, 2025.

The offer “may not last long,” the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday as it announced that a more than doubling of the stipend for those who choose to “self-deport” from $1,000 to $2,600 in honor of President Donald Trump hitting the one-year mark of his second term. But the offer also may not be legitimate at all, advocates say. 

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“Illegal aliens should take advantage of this gift and self-deport,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in the announcement. “Because if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return.”

It’s part of Trump’s “Project Homecoming,” which was launched in May to encourage unauthorized immigrants to leave the U.S. voluntarily. DHS first offered a $1,000 stipend and travel assistance to those who returned to their home country through the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Home mobile application. During the holidays, the offer was raised to $3,000, with DHS saying it was “generously TRIPLING” the stipend for the Christmas season for those who register on the app by the end of 2025. 

The program, which is funded by $250 million that was originally meant for helping to resettle refugees, is meant to reduce deportation costs. According to the latest DHS announcement, a single enforced deportation costs over $18,000, while the $2,600 stipend as well as other costs including comped airfare for those who “self-deport” through the CBP Home app comes out to just over $5,000.

But while Noem says that 2.2 million people have voluntarily “self-deported” since last January, including “tens of thousands” who used the CBP Home app, the Atlantic reported in December that the overall figure, which is not backed by verifiable data, is implausible and would have had noticeable effects on the labor market. Moreover, the Atlantic calculated that the true cost of each of some 35,000 “self-deportations,” when factoring in a $200-million advertising campaign for the program, was about $7,500.

ProPublica also reported in October that of some 25,000 immigrants who had departed through the CBP Home app by then, many did not receive assistance from DHS.

And the Guardian reported in December that while some who “self-deported” received a $1,000 stipend, others either never did or encountered significant delays and difficulties. Others claimed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials dangled the stipend to deceive them, even though they were not eligible for the program, into leaving the U.S. without any benefits or into giving up their location, which could be used to detain and deport them. And while the program makes out that those who participate may be eligible to return to the U.S. under legal pathways, that also hasn’t been true for some, who have found themselves facing yearslong or even lifetime bans from reentry.

These mirror critics’ earlier warnings about the program. When the program incentivizing “self-deportation” came out last year, the American Immigration Lawyers Association called it a “deeply misleading and unethical trick,” adding that the government’s offer “is not as simple—or as safe—as it sounds.”

“Offering undocumented migrants a cash stipend to leave the country is neither sound policy nor smart politics,” attorney Raul Reyes wrote for the Hill last year. “And with this Administration’s antipathy toward migrants, it could well be a trap with life-altering consequences.”

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Why Second Lady Usha Vance’s Pregnancy Is Historic

Republican vice presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) is joined by his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance on stage on the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum  in Milwaukee, Wis. on July 17, 2024.

Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President J.D. Vance, has already made history in a few ways: she’s the first person of color to become Second Lady and the youngest Second Lady since the Truman Administration. She may also soon be the first sitting Second Lady in modern history to bear a child in over 150 years.

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“We’re very excited to share the news that Usha is pregnant with our fourth child, a boy,” the Vice President shared on social media Tuesday. “Usha and the baby are doing well, and we are all looking forward to welcoming him in late July.”

In the message, the Vice President thanked military doctors for “[taking] excellent care of our family” and staff members “who do so much to ensure that we can serve the country while enjoying a wonderful life with our children.”

J.D., 41, and Usha, 40, met at Yale University and married in 2014. They have three kids: Ewan, 8; Vivek, 5; and Mirabel Rose, 4.

Before Usha Vance, the only sitting Second Lady in modern history to give birth was President Ulysses S. Grant’s Vice President Schuyler Colfax’s wife Ellen, who had a son in 1870; birth records before then are unclear.

The Trump White House extended its congratulatory message to the Vances, and in a post on X, called itself “The most pro-family administration in history!”

Vance, in particular, is an outspoken pro-natalist. He has sounded the alarm on declining birthrates, branded Democrats as “childless cat ladies” and “anti-family and anti-child,” and called Americans’ lack of desire to have children as a “civilizational crisis.”

“I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vance said at a March for Life rally last year. “I want more happy children in our country, and I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them.”

Correction:
The original version of this story mischaracterized the historic nature of Usha Vance’s pregnancy. She would be the first sitting Second Lady to bear a child in over 150 years, not ever.

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Advocates and Artists Toast to Advancing MLK Jr.’s Dream at TIME Impact Dinner

Four decades since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first observed, members from across industries acknowledged that work remains to be done in civil rights, racial equity, and shared humanity at a TIME Impact Dinner on Monday night in Los Angeles.

TIME brought together industry leaders, advocates, and artists, as well as the architects of the national holiday, for the dinner, themed “Advancing the Dream — From Healing to Action.” 

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“Our hope is that tonight sparks ideas, deepens understanding, and strengthens connection,” said Loren Hammonds, the head of documentary at TIME Studios, in his opening remarks. “But most importantly, that it fuels the kind of collective action that Dr. King called us toward: action rooted in courage, compassion, and a belief in our shared humanity; and the power that comes from civic responsibility, community healing, and the vital role the arts play in moving these efforts forward.” 

Throughout the dinner, six special guests gave toasts about continuing commitments to champion justice and community and how storytelling can help support these efforts and honor the late Dr. King’s legacy.

La June Montgomery Tabron

La June Montgomery Tabron, president & CEO of the philanthropic organization W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which sponsored the TIME Impact Dinner, raised her glass “not just to the dreamers, but to the artists and storytellers who show us what’s possible and the leaders who make it real.” 

Tabron said that she was introduced to King through his famed 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech—not the version at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., but the one in Cobo Hall in Detroit, Mich. months earlier.

“In so many ways, my life has been a realization of Dr. King’s dream—and only over time have I come to understand how deeply his words have shaped my career and the responsibility I have felt to help extend that dream to others,” she said.

[video id=8EmVU0ah vertical video_text=La June Montgomery Tabron: "In this moment of struggle and uncertainty, everything is possible.”]

In Tabron’s toast, she recognized that 40 years since the first celebration of MLK Day, “everything we’ve fought for, all the progress we’ve made, hangs in the balance. But the inverse is also true. In this moment of struggle and uncertainty, everything is possible.”

Colman Domingo

Award-winning American actor, playwright, producer, and director Colman Domingo says that as a storyteller, he feels deeply connected to the dream Dr. King spoke of, “a dream shaped by language, by clarity, by conviction, and by the courage to name injustice plainly.” He added the holiday and the TIME Impact Dinner “is not only about challenging systems that fail us, but about telling fuller truths and strengthening the human connections that those systems too often erode.”

In his toast, Domingo acknowledged Aml Ameen, whom he acted alongside in the 2023 biopic Rustin about civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. In the film, Ameen portrayed King, while Domingo portrayed King’s close advisor Rustin. “As a storyteller, I stand shoulder to shoulder with this man,” Domingo said of Ameen, “and I want to stand shoulder to shoulder in this room with all of you tonight as we continue to march forth and do the work, the good work.”

Appearing to allude to the political climate in the U.S., Domingo encouraged everyone not to be downhearted. “These are dark times; well, we’ve always lived in dark times,” he said. “And what do we do? We get up again and again and again, and we do the work, and we love, and we dance, and we write, and we play, and we make this world bend a little further towards justice.”

aja monet

Los Angeles-based surrealist blues poet aja monet also paid tribute to King and his legacy through poetic remarks. She began with a reference to King’s famous sermon, “The Drum Major Instinct,” which King delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Feb. 4, 1968, just two months before his assassination, and she emphasized how that sermon speaks to the human desire to stand out.

monet, in her speech, lauded King at times—“Like many prophetic messages, Dr. King offers a view into now, the very age of the attention economy, a generation raised on the proclamation of me or I, without context of we or us”—as well as decried his demise. “There is no telling what Dr. King would say of this current moment, because this moment was stolen from him, an assassination turned into a holiday.”

[video id=q50QVwNU vertical video_text=Poet aja monet pays tribute to Dr. King and his legacy]

In her performance, monet imagined an interaction between King and renowned American jazz drummer Max Roach, offering musicmaking as an analogy for changemaking. “The question we all must confront is, who are we on the bandstand, and what kind of musician do we choose to be?” she said, before adding: “Pick up your instrument. It’s not time for you to sit down. Play like you know how to listen.”

Dolores Huerta

Labor leader and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta, an inaugural TIME Latino Leader in 2023 whose work with migrant farmworkers birthed the United Farm Workers of America, said in her toast that crucial to King’s legacy was his work with working people and the poor. 

Huerta also honored Rustin and actor-singer Harry Belafonte, who were pivotal figures in the American civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s, as well as King’s widow Coretta Scott King, who worked with Stevie Wonder to establish Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a national holiday.

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“We’ve got to remember not only Dr. King, but we’ve got to remember everybody else that worked with him and that made the holiday possible, that made his legacy possible, the legacy that all of us have got to continue to commit, that we are not going to stop and we’re going to keep on working and we can realize his dream,” Huerta said, before ending her toast with chants to King and repeating the UFW slogan she famously coined: “¡Sí se puede!

Ryan Alexander Holmes

In his toast, content creator and actor Ryan Alexander Holmes—born to a Chinese immigrant mother and an African American father—talked about the racial tensions he experienced growing up. Holmes pointed to how he saw, in 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement and the Stop Asian Hate movement being pitted against each other. “Because I am both Black and Asian, I am not armed with the illusion of choosing a side, because both are in my DNA,” he said. “In my blood is the unification of both—the very dream Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke into existence.”

[video id=CyLVGZok vertical video_text=Ryan Alexander Holmes on movements being pitted against each other]

He ended his toast with how his grandfather’s life ended in gun-related violence, similar to King’s, and how his late grandfather had passed down a dream of continuous improvement. “It is now my dream, and it is the dream of everyone in this room—to make the next generation better than the next—and it was also Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.”

Stevie Wonder

R&B legend Stevie Wonder opened his toast with a question: “What will it take for us to say enough is enough? Armed, masked men marching down the streets, snatching American citizens off the streets?” The question appeared to be in reference to ongoing immigration enforcement across multiple states, which has led to deaths and widespread protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Wonder called on the dinner attendees to “remember your responsibility” in upholding justice, and he challenged them “to find our own personal resistance to the evil forces at work.”

Wonder capped off the evening with a rendition of “Visions,” a track from his critically acclaimed 1973 album, Innervisions, before he called on a choir to join him in the very song that helped lead to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday they were gathered for: “Happy Birthday.”

TIME Impact Dinner: Advancing the Dream — From Healing to Action was presented by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

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Why Stevie Wonder Wanted to Make a Film About the Fight for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Stevie Wonder, the R&B hitmaker behind “Superstition” and “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” among others, said that he was five years old when he first heard the voice of a then-emerging young civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Decades later, Wonder’s production company Eyes ‘n’ Sound has been working with TIME Studios on a feature documentary that chronicles the musician’s crucial role in the fight to establish Martin Luther King Jr. Day as an American national holiday

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“I felt the need for us to celebrate a man who spent his life fighting, fighting for those rights, the rights for equality, the rights for civil rights, the rights for justice, the rights for the things that we say that this nation stands for,” Wonder said Monday at a TIME Impact Dinner commemorating the holiday. Wonder added that people must understand the level of “commitment and responsibility” needed to continue to champion those rights.

The film, which attendees on Monday got an exclusive sneak peek of the trailer for and which is set for release later this year, centers on Wonder’s iconic “Happy Birthday” song that was released on his 1980 album Hotter Than July.

The documentary feature is directed by Academy Award-nominated director Traci Curry, who co-directed Attica (2021) and the National Geographic documentary series Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time (2025). Curry said Monday that the film is an “invitation for the audience to reconsider some very familiar aspects of our culture” as it dives deep into the creation and the history of the birthday song.

Wonder’s song galvanized a movement honoring King’s legacy and—with the help of King Jr.’s widow, Coretta Scott King, and the Congressional Black Caucus—a bill to create the holiday landed on the U.S. House floor in 1983, which former President Ronald Reagan signed into law that November.

Curry said that the documentary could also offer a blueprint for mass movements, recognizing the current political climate in the U.S. “We find ourselves in a political moment in this country where the rights that Dr. King and the members of the civil rights movement fought so hard for are in peril, as is our very democracy,” Curry says. “And I think we are in a moment where people are looking for a blueprint of what to do.”

When asked about what artists can do to lead change, Wonder referenced the lyrics to another of his songs, “Superstition,” in which he sings: “When you believe in things you don’t understand, then you suffer / Superstition ain’t the way.”

“Do your research,” he explained. “Discover the truth. Truth is the light, and we, as people of this nation and all over the world, must remember that we hold the power, and we must use that power, the gift that we have, the opportunity that we have. Use that power to educate, motivate, and inspire the young people of today.”

“I would hope that artists that get it will get it and do something about it,” he concluded. “I can’t tell you what to do, but you better do the right thing.”

TIME Impact Dinner: Advancing the Dream — From Healing to Action was presented by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

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Trump Says No Need ‘To Think Purely of Peace’ in Letter to Norway About Nobel Prize Loss, Greenland Ambitions

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 16, 2026.

Donald Trump sent an ominous warning to the Prime Minister of Norway, suggesting that war could be on the table in his pursuit of Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.

In a letter shared late Sunday by PBS journalist Nick Schifrin from the U.S. President to Norway’s leader Jonas Gahr Støre, Trump warned that after not winning last year’s Nobel Peace Prize “for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS,” he “no longer feel[s] an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”

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Trump has in the past conflated the honor, which is given by the Norway-based Nobel Committee, with the nation and its government. Of his denial of the Peace Prize, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity earlier this month: “It’s been a very big embarrassment to the country of Norway. Whether they have anything to do with it or not. I think they do. They say they don’t.”

Read More: In Places Trump Has Touted Bringing Peace, Conflict Still Rages

Trump’s letter to Støre went on to tie his warning of no longer thinking “purely of peace” to his campaign to take over Greenland.

“Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway?” he continued. “There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”

The National Security Council also reportedly forwarded the letter to European ambassadors in Washington, according to Schifrin’s X post.

Støre confirmed to Norwegian news outlet VG that he received the letter, saying that Trump’s note was a response to an earlier message where he and Finland’s President Alexander Stubb sought a conversation with their U.S. counterpart.

“The President is committed to establishing long-term peace at home and abroad,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement to TIME, when asked about the letter. “President Trump believes Greenland is a strategically important location that is critical from the standpoint of national security, and he is confident Greenlanders would be better served if protected by the United States from modern threats in the Arctic region.”

Trump’s message to Støre comes as he escalated pressure on fellow member-states in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defense alliance to deliver Greenland to him. On Saturday, Trump announced on Truth Social that starting Feb. 1, he’s imposing a 10% tariff on a handful of NATO members, including Norway and Denmark, for sending troops to Greenland. That tariff will remain—and even increase to 25% come June—“until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland,” he said.

Read More: Europe Promises United Response to Trump’s ‘Dangerous’ Greenland Tariffs

NATO countries have fiercely opposed Trump’s plan to occupy Greenland, and have criticized the U.S. President’s attempts to pressure its allies with tariffs, which leaders from Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden have described as “blackmail,” to hand over the Danish territory.

Following the threat, European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, have reportedly considered using the European Union’s anti-coercion instrument—the bloc’s retaliatory trade tool nicknamed the trade “bazooka” for how it could upend trans-Atlantic trade. The “bazooka” has never been used before on any country, but should the E.U. choose to, it could severely limit U.S. access to E.U. trade markets, through either tariffs or other import control measures.

Most Americans and even some Republicans are not in support of Trump’s plan to take Greenland, especially if it involves force.

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Trump Sets Price Tag for Peace Board Membership

U.S. President Donald Trump stands in the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Jan. 16, 2026.

Donald Trump has described his proposed “Board of Peace”—the body that will oversee the transition and reconstruction of the war-wrought Gaza Strip—as “the Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place.” But that prestige apparently comes with a hefty price tag.

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Countries will have to cough up at least $1 billion in order to secure a permanent seat on the board, according to a draft charter, while other members will have three-year terms. Bloomberg first reported on the high fee, and The Times of Israel posted a copy of the draft charter text.

“Each Member State shall serve a term of no more than three years from this Charter’s entry into force, subject to renewal by the Chairman. The three-year membership term shall not apply to Member States that contribute more than USD $1,000,000,000 in cash funds to the Board of Peace within the first year of the Charter’s entry into force,” the draft reportedly says.

It’s unclear how exactly the contribution will be used. The Washington Post reported, citing an unnamed senior European official, that European leaders are in talks over Trump’s ambitions for the board, which appear to be more expansive than just settling the Gaza conflict. The official also reportedly said that despite Europe’s commitments to the Strip, there’s little appetite to significantly fund an organization that advances a Trump-led world order, amid speculation that the Board of Peace is being devised as an alternative to the United Nations, which the U.S. under Trump has increasingly been hostile to.

Bloomberg added, citing unnamed sources, that most countries that could have joined the board have found it unacceptable that the draft appears to suggest Trump—who would be the board’s inaugural chair—would manage its funds.

In dispelling claims about the fee, the White House’s rapid response account on X said the fee “simply offers permanent membership to partner countries who demonstrate deep commitment to peace, security, and prosperity.” An unnamed U.S. official also told Bloomberg that all money the board raises will be used to accomplish its mandate to rebuild Gaza.

Invitations to join Trump’s board were sent out to several countries over the weekend, including India, Jordan, Türkiye, and Egypt. Some of them, particularly those allied with Trump, swiftly accepted the invite: Argentina President Javier Milei said it was an “honor” to be invited as he posted Trump’s invitation letter on social media, as did Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

Others, however, were more circumspect with the invitation. British paper The Times of London reported that U.K. ministers are concerned about where funds would go and what legal framework the board is using to operate. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Sunday that Trump had approached him about the board weeks back but said that “with respect to the specifics of the ‘Board of Peace’, we haven’t gone through all the details of the structure, how it’s going to work, what financing is for, etc. … And so we will work through those in the coming days.”

On Friday, the White House announced the board’s founding members, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. special envoy for peace missions Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, and World Bank Group president Ajay Banga. A spokesperson for Blair told Bloomberg that he wasn’t involved in determining board membership and that questions about the high fee should be directed to the Trump Administration.

The Trump Administration has also said that the board “will set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza,” but a review of the draft charter text makes no explicit mention of Gaza. The draft charter describes the board as “an international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict.”

The U.N. Security Council in November adopted a resolution backing Trump’s proposed board to set the framework and coordinate funding for Gaza’s redevelopment, though it only authorized the board’s mandate until 2027.

Trump’s plans for the Board of Peace also come as he has threatened to take over Greenland, warning late Sunday in a reported letter to Norway—one of several countries the U.S. sanctioned with tariffs over a show of support to Greenland—that after not receiving last year’s Nobel Prize, he “no longer feel[s] an obligation to think purely of Peace.”

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