Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Amid a fast-changing geodynamics, the just-concluded World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Annual Meeting 2026, held from January 19 to 23 at Davos, Switzerland, has left many leaders perplexed as they realized that the world they were unaware of in 2025 no longer exists.
The tumultuous 2025 ended with US President Donald Trump hogging the limelight, the Ukraine war remaining unresolved, and the Gaza crisis only deepening. The new year, 2026, began with energy debates heating up, markets unsettled, disruption across sectors the new normal, and geoeconomic uncertainties mounting.
Experts, however, said there could well be at least six key takeaways from Davos:
Geopolitics:
Europe started learning the value of standing up to US President Donald Trump. His claims on Greenland crossed all of its red lines on territorial sovereignty and Europe’s resistance, possibly helped by the ensuing fall on financial markets, was seen as one reason he backed off.
But Europe’s trust in the transatlantic relationship with Washington has been badly rattled, and its leaders are looking at how to act faster when the next crisis occurs.
“There are efforts to advance European decision-making. We are probably too slow,” one European Union official was quoted as saying in media reports on Saturday.
Many European leaders and executives said they found the Trump administration’s approach offensive and rude, even as some said the US President had raised legitimate issues, even if unpalatable to some.
Ukraine was at first overshadowed during Davos, but as Trump announced a deal on Greenland, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy flew in for talks.
A peace deal still appears elusive, despite US, Ukrainian and Russian officials speaking of progress and Zelenskiy said territorial issues were still unresolved—even as they gathered in Abu Dhabi for yet another round of talks.
In another sign of the influence of the Trump administration on the agenda, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev landed in Davos for talks with US officials on Tuesday. The first Russian official to visit Davos since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Dmitriev held talks at the USA House, without attending the WEF itself.
Leaders openly debated not just whether Trump might strike Iran, but what would come after. Would the regime crumble? And if it did, who would own the fallout? Trump’s unpredictability once again became a defining feature of the event.
Macroeconomics and Markets:
The US threats on the eve of the meeting to impose tariffs on European allies for resisting Trump’s ambition to acquire Greenland inflamed trade tensions and reinforced concerns among some CEOs that Europe can no longer rely on the US.
“When you talk to the CEOs today, what do they want? Stability, predictability, and the rule of law. I would say it’s in short supply,” Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said during a debate on tariffs.
Trump’s gambit added fuel to arguments of those advocating for countries and companies to diversify commerce away from an increasingly protectionist US and to trade more with each other.
Financial services firms hoped for increased business activity and growth this year, as they contended with potential disruption from US policy, geopolitics, artificial intelligence (AI) and financial technology (fintech). JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned that a proposal to cap credit card interest rates would amount to economic disaster, while other bankers said they were trying to shape the US administration’s policy on affordability.
Crypto industry executives talked up stablecoins and blockchain technology’s potential to disrupt finance. Some bankers said they are experimenting with the new technology, while others remained wary.
Meanwhile, the macroeconomic outlook, questions about the US Federal Reserve’s independence and fears about bubbles in AI and other assets weighed on investors’ minds.
AI:
The high technology industry came to Davos in full force, with rare appearances by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.
AI startup Anthropic set up office space on Davos’ main drag for the week, aiming to grow its enterprise sales. And unlike the scepticism of late 2025, executives said they were putting concerns that the market overvalued AI companies behind them.
While jobs would disappear, they said, new ones would spring up. AI would be an excuse to justify layoffs, not necessarily the cause, two business leaders were quoted as saying in media reports.
But trade union leaders feared AI would destroy jobs and lead to more inequality, with some demanding regulation and training.
Energy:
Big Oil returned to Davos with a vengeance after a year of Trump’s presidency, as he orders a pause on wind parks and tells US companies to drill for more oil at home and abroad.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told a panel that global oil production needs to more than double to meet rising energy demand, challenging widespread analysts’ views that demand may peak in the next two decades.
He also said Europe and California were wasting too much money on green energy investments. The Trump administration is radically changing the narrative and the oil industry likes it. But breaking ranks with Trump on renewable energy, Elon Musk said, the US could produce enough solar power to meet all of its electricity needs, including booming demand from the proliferation of Big Tech’s power-hungry data centres.
“You could take a small corner of Utah, Nevada or New Mexico – a very small percentage of the area of the US. to generate all of the electricity that the US uses,” he added.
“Unfortunately, the tariff barriers for solar are extremely high and that makes the economics of deploying solar artificially high,” Musk said. And,
Defence: The world breathed a sigh of relief after Trump spoke of no military solution to his demands for Greenland. But some executives set their hopes on increased European and US defence spending, including construction projects and hiring. The US President also talked about a “secret sonic weapon” that he claimed was used during the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife on January 3, 2026.
Tailpiece: Russia and China will have to go back to the drawing board, Trump said. Russian secret services are looking into it, the Kremlin responded.