As President Donald Trump steps onto the Swiss stage to engage with global leaders at the World Economic Forum (WEF), an impending confrontation looms. The world anticipates a heated exchange between Trump and his European counterparts in Davos, primarily due to his contentious ambitions regarding Greenland and the looming threat of tariffs on any opposing nations. Among the distinguished attendees at the 56th WEF meeting is French President Emmanuel Macron, who is currently embroiled in a verbal dispute with Trump over the Greenland issue.

On Monday, Trump announced a potential 200 percent tariff on French wines and champagnes, coupled with a prediction that Macron would soon be “out of office.” This came after Macron opted out of participating in Trump’s Peace Board initiative, which aims to tackle global conflicts. Also in attendance at the forum is billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, whom Trump has previously criticized for his views on climate change, dismissing them as a “hoax.” Other notable figures with a turbulent history with Trump include Canada’s former Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and pop star Katy Perry, who publicly confirmed their relationship last December following months of rumors.

Both Perry and Trudeau have been targets of the Trump administration’s provocative remarks—Perry for her “declining” music career, and Trudeau for being mocked as the “governor of the state of Canada.” Trump has frequently jabbed at Canada, suggesting it could become the “51st state,” with Trudeau often bearing the brunt of these jabs. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump once quipped, “It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,” after a November dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. “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.

He added: ‘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’.