Reuters World News - Minnesota, Greenland, Davos and China

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

The Pentagon orders 1,500 soldiers to get ready for a possible deployment to Minnesota. The EU weighs retaliation over U.S. President Donald Trump’s Greenland tariffs. Trump’s agenda dominates Davos as the World Economic Forum gets underway. And dozens are dead after a high-speed train crash in Spain. Plus, China tries to tackle its low birth rate. Listen to Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Listen to On Assignment here. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Find the Recommended Read here. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Kim Vinal in Wanganui, New Zealand. It's Monday, January 19th. Today, soldiers are put on standby for anti-ice protests in Minneapolis. The EU looks to diplomacy first over Trump's Greenland tariff threats, but prepares retaliatory measures just in case. World leaders head to Davos for the World Economic Forum. And China wants to make it as easy as possible to have kids after another year of declining birth rates.

This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. The Pentagon has put about 1,500 soldiers in Alaska on standby for a possible deployment to Minnesota, where people have been rallying daily against the stepped-up deportations. On Sunday, crowds in St. Paul honked and shouted as ICE agents, guns, drawn, stormed a home and pulled out a man wearing only underwear and a blanket into the snowy street. Anti-ice demonstrators have been out in force since an ICE officer shot 37-year-old Renee Good dead earlier this month. President Trump has threatened to use the Insurrection Act to bring the situation under control. And as Phil Stewart in Washington, D.C. explains,

local leaders say that would only inflame tensions. I think the big question, is if Trump were to deploy troops to Minneapolis, you know, would we be in a whole different ballgame, really, at that point? Because the idea potentially could be to, you know, really address these protests more directly. And if he invokes the Insurrection Act, that would be treating these folks as insurrectionists, which, again, gets into major legal issues, given the right for peaceful demonstration inside the United States. To Europe now, where diplomats are rushing to head off. a tariff fight sparked by America's push to buy Greenland.

After meeting in Brussels, EU ambassadors say the plan now is to try and talk President Donald Trump out of imposing new tariffs on US allies, but they're also preparing to hit back if he goes ahead. Trump has threatened duties on Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, plus Britain and Norway, until the US is allowed to pay. purchase Greenland. Danish foreign minister, Lars Lóke-Rasmussen, says Europe will listen to reasonable U.S. concerns, but won't hand over the territory. One option the EU is weighing is retaliatory tariffs.

The other is the anti-coercion instrument, a tool designed to push back when the block feels another country is trying to apply economic pressure. Reuters Brussels' chief correspondent, Philip Bleckensopp, explains what that means. Now, this is something that's never been used. It's ideally there as a deterrent. It offers a range of options, of countermeasures, to what's called coercion or economic coercion.

And the argument would be that in placing tariffs on these countries, the United States would be coercing, the European Union and the European countries to get in over Greenland. The options include tariffs, but they also include perhaps restrictions on access to investments, to the banking activities in the block, and also perhaps restrictions on the trade in services, and this may be significant because unlike goods, the US has a trade surplus in services with regard to the EU. And of course, we can think of certain services,

whether it be financial banking, but also obviously digital services where the United States is dominant and obviously those companies rely on access to the European market to make their money. And Philip says some in the EU want to go even further. Another which has been raised by a German lawmaker is boycotting the World Cup,

which is going to be hosted largely in the United States, next year now. Obviously, we haven't got to that point yet. For more on how the potential tariff war is impacting markets, here's Mike Dolan from our sister Markets podcast Morning Bit. Hi, Kim. Yeah, as you might expect, global stock markets have fallen on this latest tariff threat from Donald Trump, this time over Greenland against eight European allies. The European stocks are down about 1% on that news. US futures, because Wall Street's closed today for Martin Luther King Day, are also down about 1%.

And probably the most interesting development has been a drop in the US dollar, which normally you'd expect to benefit from a geopolitical standoff like this. But it's interesting that the euro has rallied. And you might think that the euro at the sharp end of these tariff threats might be the one to suffer. But it's interesting that European savers and investors, are very big holders of US stocks and bonds. And if there is a retaliatory trade war developing, then that could be disturbed considerably. At least that's a market concern.

Thanks, Mike. You can listen to MorningBid wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to go even deeper on Greenland and hear more from the Danish territory itself, take a listen to our on-assignment weekend episode. There's a link in the description. The EU's push for dialogue over Greenland is said to be front and center at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which kicks off today.

It's one of the most high-powered gatherings in years, 3,000 delegates from 130 countries, including 64 presidents and prime ministers. Among them is President Donald Trump, attending for the first time in six years. And as Reuters' Europe economics editor, Mark John, tells us, Trump is likely to dominate many of the big themes on the agenda. I suppose we can frame it as what exactly Trump's America means for the rest of the world. Specifically, what kind of security partner is America becoming? What kind of economic partner in terms of trade? And also potentially, given that there are these rising concerns about financial stability.

What kind of partner would it be in responding to a global financial cost? crisis, if one were to emerge. The other thing that's worth mentioning, I think, is that this year we are seeing lots more oil executives coming to Davos. Traditionally, they have often had quite a small presence. I guess that would be evaluated in terms of what they are expecting to hear from Trump and others about the prospects of more fossils fuel activity. and others, of course, will be looking at in terms of what all of this means for the energy transition

and the move to greener fuels. One other issue on the agenda, Ukraine's top negotiator says that talks with the US for a resolution to the war will continue in Davos. In Spain, survivors climb out the windows of a train carriage tipped on its side after a high-speed train derailed and smashed into another oncoming train in the country's south. Dozens of people were killed and dozens more were injured, some of them seriously. The cause of the crash, which happened on a straight stretch of track, is not yet clear. China's head of the National Bureau of Statistics announcing that the country's population fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2025. It sparked a huge effort to try and get more people to have base.

babies. Farrahmaster in Hong Kong has more on what Beijing is doing. So the two keen things that they're going to be spending on are the child care subsidies, which were announced last year for the first time, and also all medical expenses through pregnancy. This would include IVF, for example, making it fully reimbursable for people going through pregnancy under insurance. So effectively, they want to ensure no-cost pregnancy. But beyond fertility, Farah says Beijing needs to tackle some deep-rooted issues. Because of the one-child policy, which was in place until 2015, there's a mindset, if you like in China, where a lot of people are used to not having children or only one child. And so it's very difficult to suddenly turn this around.

And staying in China for our recommended read, and some of those government policies could be working. Data shows that marriage rates rose for the first nine months of 2025. And our article looks at how wedding dress sellers are pinning their hopes on the trend continuing. There's a link to read more in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.