Much of the worldwide response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech on the World Economic Forum on Wednesday has focused on his plans for Greenland amid threats to accumulate the semi-autonomous Danish territory — but several other notable moments could have been ignored.
The speech lasted greater than an hour and touched on tariffs, the U.S. central bank and prescription drug prices, amongst other topics.
There was also a reference to recent “weapons of warfare,” with few other details.
Listed here are a number of the key takeaways from Trump’s speech beyond what he shared on Greenland and his comments on Canada.
Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve
Trump said he plans to announce a brand new chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve shortly as well.
Central banks just like the U.S. Fed and the Bank of Canada have a mandate to maintain economies stable by adjusting rates of interest to take care of price stability while also encouraging growth.
They reach these decisions independently, based on expert evaluation and data, while strongly opposing outside influence from government leaders and agendas.
“I’ll be announcing a brand new Fed chairman within the not-too-distant future. I believe he’ll do a superb job. See, I gave away a few of it — he. I did give that away,” Trump said at Davos.
“So we’ve something. You get something. But any person that’s very respected, they’re all respected. They’re all great. Everyone that I interviewed is great. Everyone could do, I believe a unbelievable job. Problem is they alter once they get the job, they do.”
He continued: “You recognize, they’re saying all the things I need to listen to. After which they get the job, they’re locked in for six years. They get the job and swiftly, ‘let’s raise rates a bit bit.’ I call them: ‘Sir, we’d fairly not speak about this.’”
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“It’s amazing how people change once they’ve the job. It’s too bad. It’s kind of disloyalty. But they’ve got to do what they think is correct. We’ve got a terrible chairman at once, Jerome ‘Too late’ Powell. He’s at all times too late. And, he’s very late with rates of interest, except before the election. He was just wonderful for the opposite side,” Trump added.
The long run of drug prices
In his speech, Trump claimed that prescription drug prices were going to return down worldwide, then said he used tariffs to pressure French President Emmanuel Macron to boost some prices in France.
This comes after the White House announced in December 2025 that nine major pharmaceutical firms would slash the costs of medicines for the federal government’s Medicaid program and for money payers in Trump’s latest bid to align U.S. costs with those in other wealthy nations.
“Drug prices are going to be coming down tremendously in all of the nations, and I appreciate them doing it. But they did it. In all fairness, without tariffs, I wouldn’t have been capable of get it done,” said Trump.
“Under my most favoured nation policy for drug prices, the associated fee of pharmaceuticals is coming down by as much as 90 per cent, depending on the best way you calculate.”
Trump’s “most favoured nation policy” goals to bring down some prescription drug prices within the U.S. to levels comparable to those in other nations, which can pay less for a similar products.
Trump continued:
“I said, ‘Emmanuel [Macron, president of France], you’re going to should lift the worth of that pill to $20, possibly $30.’ Consider that. Which means it’s a doubling. A doubling of pharmaceuticals could be a tripling, could be a quadrupling. It’s difficult,” said Trump.
“‘No, no, no,’ he said. ‘Here’s the story, Emmanuel. The reply is you’re going to do it. You’re going to do it fast. And when you don’t, I’m putting a 25 per cent tariff on all the things that you just sell into the USA.’”
At one point in his speech, Trump referred to recent U.S. “weapons of warfare,” without entering into specifics.
“So now our country and the world face much greater risks than it did ever before. Due to missiles, due to nuclear, due to weapons of warfare that I can’t even speak about,” said Trump.
“Two weeks ago, they saw weapons that no person ever heard of. They weren’t capable of fire one shot at us. They said what happened? The whole lot was discombobulated.”
It isn’t clear what instance Trump was referring to where these “weapons” were used, however the timeline of “two weeks ago” is near the timing of the U.S. strikes on Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.
Earlier this month, CNN reported, citing multiple sources, on the acquisition by the Pentagon of a tool the report said is believed to be linked to the “Havana syndrome” cases which have plagued U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Cuba, starting in 2016.
Global News has not independently verified CNN’s reporting, and Trump gave no further details on what kind of weapons he was referring to in his speech.
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