Many Greendlanders have been protesting Trump's desire to control the territory. But why does the U.S. president want to?JULIETTE PAVY/The New York Times
Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s business and investing news quiz. Join us each week to test your knowledge of the stories making headlines. Our business reporters come up with the questions, and you can show us what you know.
This week: As global political, economic and business leaders gather in Davos for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, Donald Trump’s desire to take over Greenland has quickly risen to the top of the agenda. But why – at least in part – is the U.S. President so set on controlling the territory? Take our quiz and find out.
c. Norway didn’t give him the Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Trump never ceases to amaze. His message to the Norwegian Prime Minister read in part, “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.” It concluded, “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.” Weird capitalization and global power lust aside, the U.S. President’s declaration is a puzzler, because the Norwegian government doesn’t award the Nobel Peace Prize.
b. The NATO Secretary-General. Mr. Trump announced on social media that he and Mark Rutte had talked in Davos, Switzerland, and “formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland.” As a result, he said he will not go ahead with an additional 10-per-cent tariff on Feb. 1 as planned. Unless, of course, he changes his mind again.
c. Gold surpassed US$4,800 an ounce for the first time as Mr. Trump’s bid to control Greenland drove demand for safer, haven-like assets. For bullion investors, nothing succeeds like chaos.
b. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Hootsuite secured a US$95,000 pilot project with ICE in September, according to internal communications obtained by The Globe and Mail. The Canadian company has discussed monitoring conversations on social media related to the controversial agency, including talk of ICE enforcement actions in specific cities.
a. GFL Environmental. Hey, whatever happened to that elbows-up thing? Waste disposal giant GFL Environmental is moving its head office from a suburb of Toronto to Miami Beach in hopes of winning a greater following from U.S. index funds. GFL will remain incorporated in Ontario, meaning that GFL will continue to qualify for membership in domestic stock benchmarks, such as the S&P/TSX Composite Index. However, its head office move means it will also gain eligibility for widely followed U.S. indexes.
a. WestJet responded to the outpouring of social media criticism by cancelling a new configuration that squeezed an extra row of seats into many of its planes. Already installed on 22 of WestJet’s Boeing 737s, the non-reclining seats offered the smallest amount of leg room on any large Canadian carrier. The airline plans to return the cabins to their previous layout.
c. The birth rate in China has hit its lowest point since the Communist Party took power in 1949 and the country’s population is shrinking. Beijing has recently been rolling out incentives to entice more women to have more children, but with little success. Consider this a case study in central planning gone awry: As recently as a decade ago, China imposed a strict one-child policy on families to discourage population growth. Oops.
d. 25 years. If at first, you don’t succeed…keep trying for 25 years. The EU and Mercosur finally sealed a deal after more than two decades of negotiations. And here you thought things moved slowly in Canada.
a. Selling ads. OpenAI says it will start showing ads in ChatGPT to some U.S. users on the company’s free tier and lower-priced Go plan. The move marks a major departure for OpenAI, which had previously relied on subscription revenue. The AI pioneer is under pressure to increase revenue as it spends heavily on data centres and prepares for a widely anticipated initial public offering.
d. Nova Scotia's government is defending itself after three other provinces levelled accusations that it is being secretive and undermining Canada’s fight against the United States over softwood lumber. Nova Scotia is urging the U.S. Department of Commerce to reject requests from Quebec, Alberta and Ontario for the Atlantic province to provide much greater detail on how it calculates fees charged for harvesting timber.
d. All the above.Canada’s housing crisis is entering a new and dangerous stage as sliding prices and rising construction costs deter the building of new units despite a continuing shortage of housing. Sales of newly completed condominiums in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area fell 60 per cent last year to their lowest level since 1991. It was the fourth straight year of falling new condo sales in the region, according to a report from Urbanation.
b. Prime Minister Mark Carney. If you hoped that the wild swings in markets this week were just a passing frenzy, think again. In a widely quoted speech in Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Carney argued that the old global order, based on U.S. hegemony, is now irretrievably broken. He called on middle powers to band together to create a more equitable system. That prompted Mr. Trump to fire back: “Canada lives because of the United States.” Stay tuned.