President Donald Trump told a room full of oligarchs at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that “sometimes you need a dictator”—then pointed to himself as the example.
“Usually they say: he’s a horrible dictator type person; I’m a dictator. But sometimes you need a dictator,” Trump said Wednesday while addressing leaders on the sidelines of the forum.
WHAT’S GOING ON: This wasn’t a slip of the tongue or a joke. The president has now openly compared himself to an authoritarian ruler multiple times. Before the 2024 election, he told Sean Hannity he’d be “a dictator, but only for day one.” We’re well past day one.
In the past year alone, Trump has bypassed Congress to conduct lethal boat strikes in the Caribbean, purged and politicized the federal workforce, deployed troops in U.S. cities to crack down on dissent, targeted opponents for retribution, and—this is a real thing he said—suggested cancelling the upcoming midterm elections because he’s accomplished so much.
THE DETAILS: The dictator comment came after Trump doubled down on his push to seize Greenland, a self-governing democratic territory of Denmark and a NATO ally. Taking it by military force would be a gross violation of international law, but Trump initially refused to rule that out.
He’s since backed off slightly, announcing a vague “framework for a future deal” with NATO after meeting with Secretary-General Mark Rutte. No details were provided, but Trump used it as justification to delay tariffs he’d threatened against European nations who opposed his Greenland ambitions.
During the same Davos speech, Trump praised actual authoritarians Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping while attacking America’s traditional democratic allies—France, the UK, and Denmark—complaining, “We give so much and we get so little in return.”
BUT BUT BUT: European leaders aren’t taking this lying down. French President Emmanuel Macron fired back that “we do prefer respect to bullies” and “rule of law to brutality.” The European Union suspended work on a trade deal it had brokered with the Trump administration last summer. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the U.S.-led global order was experiencing “a rupture.”
And Danish lawmaker Anders Vistisen put it most bluntly during a European Parliament debate: “Let me put this in words you might understand. Mr. President, f— off.”
WHY IT MATTERS: When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Trump has now openly embraced the dictator label multiple times. He’s not joking. He’s not being ironic. He’s telling business leaders at the world’s most elite economic gathering that authoritarianism is sometimes necessary—and that he’s the man for the job.
Meanwhile, democratic allies are openly breaking with the United States, the ruling class in Davos is getting the message that strongman politics is the new American brand, and the president is floating the cancellation of elections. This isn’t normal. None of this is normal.