The Greenland Fiasco Shows the Stock Market Is the Ultimate Check on Trump |
Stock Market
Jack Nicastro | 1.22.2026 3:47 PM
After weeks of saber rattling, President Donald Trump announced that he would not use military force to annex Greenland during a Wednesday speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. While Trump has railed against globalization for giving American workers "nothing but poverty and heartache," Americans should thank global financial markets for helping to check the president's worst impulses.
As the old saying goes, "When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will." It doesn't necessarily follow that when goods cross borders, soldiers won't, but luckily for Americans, Greenlanders, and Europeans, the global financial market's response to Trump's belligerence is likely responsible for the "Trump always chickens out" (TACO) phenomenon in the case of Greenland.
Dominic Pino, editorial writer at The Washington Post, explains the economic causes of TACO with a simple illustration of the S&P 500 from January 16 to January 21:
Genuinely insane that........