As President Donald Trump touches down in Switzerland to speak at the World Economic Forum (WEF), he is poised for confrontations with several prominent attendees.

The world anticipates a tense exchange between Trump and his European counterparts in Davos, fueled by his contentious proposal to acquire Greenland and his tariff threats against nations opposing his plan.

Among the distinguished leaders at the 56th WEF gathering is French President Emmanuel Macron, who is currently engaged in a sharp verbal exchange with Trump over the Greenland issue.

On Monday, Trump threatened to levy a 200 percent tariff on French wines and champagnes, asserting that Macron “will be out of office very soon” after the French leader declined to support Trump’s Board of Peace initiative, which seeks to address global conflicts.

Billionaire Bill Gates is also in attendance, a figure Trump has previously ridiculed for being “completely WRONG” about the “Climate Change Hoax.”

Other attendees with whom Trump shares a contentious history include former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and pop star Katy Perry, who recently confirmed their relationship on Instagram following months of speculation.

Both have previously been on the receiving end of trolling from the Trump administration – including comments about Perry’s ‘declining’ career, and jabs about  Trudeau being ‘governor of the state of Canada’. 

The US President has repeatedly trolled Canada with rhetoric about the country becoming the ’51st state’.

Trudeau was often on the receiving end of the annexation jabs, and even labelled as ‘governor’ by the President in goading posts on his Truth Social platform.

‘It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,’ Trump said in a post in December 2024, following a dinner the pair had that November at Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

‘I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all!’

The two leaders entered a trade war in early 2025, when Trudeau set out ‘far-reaching’ reciprocal tariffs of 25 per cent to match Trump’s 25 per cent levy on Canadian imports to the US.

Last October, Trump said he was adding 10 per cent to US tariffs on goods imported from Canada, after the province of Ontario aired an anti-tariff advertisement featuring Ronald Reagan.

In March 2025, the US President accused Trudeau of using the tariff war to stay in power, writing on Truth Social after a phone call: ‘He was unable to tell me when the Canadian Election is taking place, which made me curious, like, what’s going on here?

‘I then realised he is trying to use this issue to stay in power. Good luck Justin!’

Trump’s jabs about Canada becoming the ’51st state’ continued until after Trudeau resigned last January, and into the Canadian election which began at the end of April.

‘Good luck to the Great people of Canada,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social as polls in some parts of the country were opening.

‘Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, WITH ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st State of the United States of America,’ he went on.

‘No more artificially drawn line from many years ago. 

‘Look how beautiful this land mass would be. 

‘Free access with NO BORDER. ALL POSITIVES WITH NO NEGATIVES. IT WAS MEANT TO BE! America can no longer subsidise Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!’

Katy Perry appeared at the WEF in Switzerland on Tuesday, walking arm-in-arm with Trudeau before he delivered his speech to business leaders about the value of ‘soft power’. 

The couple first sparked dating rumours in July and have since forged a firm bond, frequently spotted out and about on lavish jaunts.

The I Kissed A Girl hitmaker, 41, has had her own history of tense exchanges with the Trump administration – potentially sparked by her endorsement of former US Vice President Kamala Harris before she lost the 2024 presidential election. 

Following reports that Perry attended an all-staff Zoom call with Harris’ campaign as a show of support for the politician, a Trump source told TMZ: ‘Both Kamala Harris’ and Katy Perry’s careers are on decline curves that parallel our failing economy and border security under Kamala’s watch. 

‘Don’t worry – President Trump is coming back in a matter of weeks to fix things and Make America Great Again!’ 

In other signs of her support for Trump’s former opponent, Perry was photographed wearing a Harris-Walz camo hat and wrote on Instagram that Harris was ‘exactly the kind of leader WITH experience we desperately need right now’.

In April last year, Perry and five other women went to space aboard Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket. 

She was joined by Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez and CBS presenter Gayle King, who noted a highlight of the trip was hearing Perry perform Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a Wonderful World’.

But when the Blue Origin social media team described the women as an ‘astronaut crew’, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy staged an intervention.

‘The US commercial space industry is an inspiring project which showcases American ingenuity and exceptionalism,’ he wrote on X.

‘But the last FAA guidelines under the Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program were clear: Crewmembers who travel into space must have “demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety.” 

‘The crew who flew to space this week on an automated flight by Blue Origin were brave and glam, but you cannot identify as an astronaut. They do not meet the FAA astronaut criteria.’

Perry said she felt ‘super connected to life’ and ‘so connected to love’ after landing back on Earth after the flight, which lasted around 11 minutes.

The journey took the six women more than 62 miles above Earth, crossing the internationally recognised boundary of space and giving them a few, brief moments of weightlessness.

Trump openly mocked Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in a post on Truth Social in October last year, following comments the billionaire made about climate change.

‘I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax,’ Trump wrote.

‘Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue.

‘It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!’

The post came after Gates called for a ‘strategic pivot’ in the effort against the climate crisis, criticising what he described as a ‘doomsday view of climate change’.

In a lengthy memo published on his website, the US philanthropist wrote: ‘Although climate change will have serious consequences – particularly for people in the poorest countries – it will not lead to humanity’s demise. People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.’

He went on to write that ‘although climate change will hurt poor people more than anyone else, for the vast majority of them it will not be the only or even the biggest threat to their lives and welfare’.

‘The biggest problems are poverty and disease,’ Gates wrote, ‘just as they always have been. Understanding this will let us focus our limited resources on interventions that will have the greatest impact for the most vulnerable people.’

While Trump celebrated the post as a victory against the ‘Climate Change Hoax’,  Gates didn’t deny the impact of global warming.

‘Climate change is a very important problem,’ he wrote. ‘It needs to be solved, along with other problems like malaria and malnutrition. Every tenth of a degree of heating that we prevent is hugely beneficial because a stable climate makes it easier to improve people’s lives.’

President Trump and French leader Macron have been exchanging verbal blows over the past few days in the run-up to Davos, with rhetoric on both sides heating up over Greenland.

Macron was one of the European leaders Trump recently trolled with an AI image of them looking at a map showing Greenland and Canada as US territory in the Oval Office.

The photo, posted on the President’s Truth Social platform, shows leaders including Britain’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Macron gathered around Trump’s desk.

The altered image appears to be an edited version of a photograph taken during August 2025, when European leaders visited Washington for the US President’s phone call with Vladimir Putin.

In the original version of the image, the leaders are gathered near a whiteboard, showing a map depicting the front line of the Ukraine conflict.

In the altered one, the presentation board has been edited so that a US flag covers North America, Canada and Greenland.

Trump also threatened to hit France with a 200 per cent tariff on champagne and wine Monday night before leaking a text message from President Macron that said: ‘I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland.’

The outburst took place after the college football championship game in Miami, when reporters asked the US President about Macron rejecting Trump’s invitation to join his so-called Board of Peace.

Macron had said ‘at this stage’ he was not planning on serving on Trump board, which is intended to create the second phase of the Gaza peace plan.

‘Well, nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon,’ Trump responded when asked about Macron’s rejection.

Trump then to escalated his threat of a trade war with Europe.

‘What I’ll do is, if they feel hostile, I’ll put a 200 per cent tariff on his wines and champagnes and he’ll join,’ Trump said before boarding a flight to Washington. ‘But he doesn’t have to join.’

Later Monday night, Trump revealed a text message he received from Macron where the French leader explained some of his differences and similarities to Trump on policy.

‘My friend, we are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran,’ Macron wrote. ‘I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland. Let us try to build great things.’

In the text, Macron promised to assemble a G7 meeting following the WEF in Davos and asked Trump to have dinner with him in Paris on Thursday before he returns to the US.

Trump has previously claimed that Macron ‘always gets it wrong’, when the two leaders came to blows over the Israel-Iran conflict in June last year.

‘Publicity seeking President Macron, of France, mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a “cease fire” between Israel and Iran,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.

‘Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that. Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!’

Trump previously bragged to some of his closest allies that he had ‘intelligence’ on the French President’s sex and love life, that he learned during his first term in office.

Two sources with knowledge of the matter told Rolling Stone in 2022 that Trump claimed to have learned about the dirt on Macron through briefings and viewing intelligence, but they admit it was sometimes hard to discern what information was real.

After the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022, it released a list of documents seized, including item 1A, which was listed as ‘info re: President of France’.

It is not clear what was on that particular document, if it contained information that was classified or was collected from intelligence or whether it had anything to do with Macron’s personal life.

Stephanie Grisham, who served as Trump’s press secretary at one point, wrote in a 2021 memoir that Trump had privately called Macron ‘a wuss guy’ and ‘a hundred twenty pounds of fury’ in disparaging comments about the French President.

Macron is one of the EU leaders who are considering the unthinkable and bracing for a trade war with the US, as they weigh up whether to deploy the bloc’s trade ‘bazooka’ in retaliation – hitting Washington with £81 billion in tariffs.

‘We are at a crossroads,’ European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ‌said in Strasbourg on Wednesday, saying the EU was prepared to strike back against the US President, endangering decades of cooperation.

‘Europe prefers dialog and solutions – but we are fully prepared to act, if necessary, with unity, urgency and determination,’ she told the European Parliament, adding: ‘The shift in the international order is not only seismic – but it is permanent.’ 

In his address to the WEF yesterday, Macron hit back at Trump, warning that ‘we’re shifting to a world without rules’ where ‘international law is trampled underfoot, and the only law that matters is that of the strongest’.

The French leader opened his speech by saying: ‘It’s time of peace, stability and predictability, yet we have approached instability and imbalance,’ adding that ‘conflict has become normalised’.

But while Macron did not directly address the US President, he said he prefers ‘respect to bullies’ and ‘rule of law to brutality’ following the American leader’s tariff threats.