The reversal came only hours after Trump walked back an earlier threat to use force to secure Greenland during his World Economic Forum speech in Davos, Switzerland.

“We have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that the plan would be “a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations.” He said the tariffs would be shelved “based upon this understanding.”

The announcement followed a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who has been seeking to defuse growing tensions between Washington and its European allies as Trump escalated rhetoric over Greenland’s strategic importance. Trump also said on Truth Social that additional discussions were underway concerning what he called the “Golden Dome” initiative related to Greenland, without providing details.

Markets reacted sharply to the apparent de-escalation. The S&P 500 rose 1.5% in afternoon trading, while long-term U.S. Treasury yields fell, signaling investor relief after days of volatility. Despite this pullback potentially confirming yet another instance of the “TACO trade,” or “Trump Always Chickens Out,” major questions remain over the substance of the framework. 

Trump has repeatedly said that anything less than controlling all of Greenland is “unacceptable.” It’s unclear, and seems unlikely, that the outline discussed with NATO leadership satisfies that particular condition, given that Denmark reiterated that it would not give up Greenland’s sovereignty after Trump’s speech on Wednesday. 

In his Truth Social post, Trump said Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff would lead negotiations going forward and report directly to him.The announcement also comes after the EU suspended trade negotiations with the U.S. and suspended the trade agreement they have had in place since August. CATO scholar Kyle Handley, in a statement provided to Fortune, wrote that the suspension should have never been seen as a “dramatic breakdown,” because “there was never a real deal to begin with.”

“What’s unraveling now was a fragile, politically convenient set of press releases that papered over fundamental disagreements and was always vulnerable to executive-level tariff threats.”

“I love Europe, and I want to see Europe go good,” Trump said on Wednesday at the Davos, Switzerland, meeting. “But it’s not heading in the right direction.”

But the president conceded that Europe is doing one thing better: keeping its drug prices low. 

“A pill that costs $10 in London costs $130. Think—it costs $10 in London, costs $130 in New York or in Los Angeles,” he said to murmurs from the crowd. 

Europe may not be recognizable to Trump’s friends, but Trump said he has other friends returning from London, remarking on the affordability of medication there. Indeed, a 2024 Rand study found that across all drugs, U.S. customers paid on average 2.78 times higher prices than in 33 other countries, including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, in 2022.

The president has adopted a “most favored nation” policy meant to both lower drug costs for Americans while pushing other countries to pay more. Trump made a concerted effort in his second term to address astronomical drug costs, including minting a deal with 17 pharmaceutical companies to slash U.S. prices to match medication costs overseas. The move followed a sweeping executive order issued in May to introduce the most-favored-nation policy. On Wednesday, Trump alluded to an executive order he signed last week, pledging to lower drug prices by up to 90%.

Fallout with France

Trump said pharma companies did not initially believe countries would be willing to change prices. Trump noted in his remarks that he first approached French President Emmanuel Macron about increasing drug prices, but Macron refused.

“I said, ‘Emmanuel, you’re going to have to lift the price of that pill,” Trump said.

Trump said that threatening a 25% tariff on French goods, including wines and champagne, sealed the deal. Macron’s office disputed Trump’s assertion that he pressured the French president into lowering drug prices. 

“It’s being claimed that President @EmmanuelMacron increased the price of medicines. He does not set their prices. They are regulated by the social security system and have, in fact, remained stable,” Macron’s office said in an X post. “Anyone who has set foot in a French pharmacy knows this.”

Included in the post was a gif of Trump with animated “Fake news!” text overlaid on the image.

Health policy experts say drug prices in the U.S. are so high because of a system structured differently from other countries that allow companies to negotiate with individual insurance companies or pharmacy benefit managers, giving them more leverage to raise prices than in other countries’ systems, where there is one regulatory agency negotiating drug prices for a population.

Efficacy of Trump’s efforts to lower drug costs

Industry leaders think Trump’s efforts to lower drug costs could pay off. Vas Narasimhan, CEO of pharmaceutical giant Novartis, told Fortune’s Jeremy Kahn at a USA House session in Davos on Wednesday that Trump identified a valid issue in the high cost of U.S. drugs.

About two-thirds of new drugs on the market over the last decade have come from the U.S., a result of its highly developed research and development (R&D) infrastructure. Some argue that other countries benefit from U.S. innovation without paying their fair share to support the industry’s growth.

“When you look at what underpins R&D in our industry, it’s been primarily in the United States,” Narasimhan said. “The United States is the source of more than half the profits of the industry, and without the United States, you wouldn’t have all of these innovations, all these incredible medicines.”

Narasimham emphasized the need for a “more balanced approach” to funding R&D, implying that other countries should pay more for U.S.-produced pharmaceuticals. He pointed to Trump’s deal with the 17 drug companies as a “reasonable” solution.

Early signs, however, suggest drug prices have not come down. A January report from drug price research firm 46brooklyn found drug companies, including 16 firms with which Trump made deals since September, raised drug prices for at least some of their drugs in the first two weeks of 2026. The median increase of the 872 brand-name drugs with hiked prices was about 4%, the same rate as the year before.

Reuters similarly reported earlier this month, citing data from 3 Axis Advisors, that those 17 drug companies had raised the prices of 350 medications. Public health experts attributed the rise to the behind-the-scenes nature of the deals between drug companies and insurers.

“These deals are being announced as transformative when, in fact, they really just nibble around the margins in terms of what is really driving high prices for prescription drugs in the U.S.,” Dr. Benjamin Rome, a health policy researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told the outlet.

The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

But at WPP—whose client roster includes Google, L’Oréal, LVMH, and Mastercard—Chief Technology Officer Stephan Pretorius says the advertising giant’s big “mic drop” moment has been the soaring adoption of WPP Open, an AI-enabled operating system that’s used by marketers to plan, create, and run campaigns. More than 85,000 of the agency’s 108,000 employees are using WPP Open on a monthly basis today, up sharply from 30,000 in February 2024.

“Getting that balance right and making sure that humans are in control of the output and that they evaluate and apply taste and judgment, but also that the thought process is expanded and augmented—so you don’t become like a passive passenger in the process—is really critical,” says Pretorius. 

Pretorius says WPP has embraced three levels of AI training to get the workforce ready for these AI tools. At the entry level, WPP runs a creative technology apprenticeship program, which it recently expanded under the company’s five-year, $400 million partnership with Google. The program aims to train 1,000 creative technology apprentices over the next three years, helping college graduates learn about AI and other technologies before they join one of WPP’s agencies. 

WPP also offers AI learning programs for more senior staff, including courses that teach the basics of generative AI and the appropriate use of AI in media planning and creative ideation. At the senior level, executives are expected to take “AI and business diploma” courses.

“You’ve got to do it continuously and you have to do it very purposely,” says Pretorius of the AI upskilling programs that he says need to be conducted on an ongoing basis. “I think it’s a tall order to expect people to know how to work with AI. Everyone’s still figuring it out.”

Ad agencies like WPP have increasingly embraced generative AI capabilities to support creative ideation, research, and to develop of content for their clients, with the hopes that the technology will both speed up production and ultimately lower costs. Three out of four ad industry executives say that their companies are using these tools in 2025, up from from 61% the prior year, according to a survey conducted by research firm Forrester.

But, like most other industries, these AI investments are for now a net cost for agencies. The cost of business—which Forrester defines as generative AI capabilities funded by a creative agency without passing those costs on to clients—grew 83% in 2025. Only 7% were able to sell generative AI capabilities as a separate service outside what these agencies have traditionally offered.

WPP has been making the pitch that its AI tools can generate meaningful savings. WPP Open, which uses technology from multiple providers including OpenAI’s GPT and DALL-E, Google’s Gemini family, and Anthropic’s Claude, gives teams of four 14 hours “back,” meaning time saved on the work being done by creatives. That would translate to roughly 90 days of saved “capacity” every year. WPP is also hoping to make WPP Open more alluring to external customers through the October launch of WPP Open Pro, a version of the platform that allows brands to plan, create, and publish their own creative campaigns independently. 

The company’s workforce has also created more than 75,000 AI agents by the end of 2025. Pretorius says he’s encouraged experimentation on that front, rather than a top-down mandate dictating which agents should be used across the various business units. That’s allowed teams to build AI agents that even Pretorius says he couldn’t have predicted.

“I think one does have to take a kind of expansive view of this,” says Pretorius. “Empower as many people in the business with general-purpose tools that you teach them how to use. And then, let the collective intelligence flourish.”

The pressure to get AI right comes as major agencies have been shedding jobs. Omnicom cut 4,000 jobs in December, while WPP’s Ogilvy shed 5% of its workforce in June. When WPP reported third-quarter revenue softness and revised its full-year organic growth target to a more bearish outlook, forecasting a decline of 5.5% to 6%, CEO Cindy Rose, called the performance “unacceptable.” The agency has said it would implement a restructuring to make the WPP more streamlined. Investments in technology are expected to be central to help return the business to growth.

Pretorius is an optimist when it comes to the changes AI will bring to advertising. These tools can help marketers generate more content, with greater personalization for different consumer groups, and do so at the same level of investment that was made without AI, he claims. 

“If you shy away from it, pretend it’s not existing, and pretend you can work the way you used to work…you will lose the business,” says Pretorius. “And other people will eat your lunch.”

John Kell

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NEWS PACKETS

AI takes center stage at the World Economic Forum. Top executives from the largest AI companies were in Davos this week, opining on how the technology should evolve and what that will mean for economic growth. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shared his belief that energy will be critical to determining which countries succeed in the AI race, while Meta’s new president and chairman, Dina Powell McCormick, urged the industry to align on “core values” that would make the technology both safe and productive. Mohamed Kandi, global chairman of consulting giant PwC, told Fortune that the CEO job has changed more in the last year than anything he’s witnessed for the past quarter-century. These leaders are still  facing big challenges wrapping their heads around AI, with most—56% of the 4,454 CEOs surveyed by PwC—saying they are getting “nothing out of it.”

OpenAI’s 2026 priority: “practical adoption.” OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar shared that the AI startup’s annualized revenue exceeded $20 billion in 2025, more than triple the prior year’s level, and said computing capacity also soared as weekly and daily active users reached all-time highs. Friar also said that the company’s priority will be to close the gap “between what AI now makes possible and how people, companies, and countries are using it day to day.” She didn’t expand much on what that would mean practically, but there are some recent reports that point to OpenAI’s direction, at least in terms of how it hopes to generate more money to help it turn a profit. OpenAI is aiming to debut its first hardware device later in 2026, has struck a deal with ServiceNow to integrate OpenAI’s AI models into the latter company’s business software, and is testing how ads can show up within ChatGPT. 

Geopolitics intertwine with chipmaking between the U.S. and Asia. Last week, Taiwan agreed to invest at least $250 billion in production capacity in the U.S. and a government guarantee of $250 billion in credit for the companies that make those investments, according to a new trade deal struck between the nations. In exchange, the U.S. has agreed to limit its “reciprocal” tariffs on Taiwan to 15%, down from 20%. The announcement reflects the Trump administration’s efforts to bring chipmaking back on U.S. soil. Meanwhile, in China, the U.S. imposed a 25% tariff on imports of some advanced semiconductors, including the H200 AI processors made by Nvidia, before they are shipped to China. 

Anthropic poised to raise another $25 billion or more. AI startup Anthropic is reportedly in talks with investors for fresh funding that would value the company at $350 billion, more than double its valuation from just four months ago, the Financial Times reports, saying the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital may invest in the company for the first time. This news comes days after Anthropic launched Claude Cowork, which is an AI agent that can manipulate, read, and analyze files on a user’s computer, and also create new files.

ADOPTION CURVE

CEOs are again steering AI implementation. In the immediate wake of the debut of ChatGPT in late 2022, the pressure to set a clear strategy on AI sat on the desk of the CEO. But soon after, it became clear that the top technologists—CTOs, chief information officers, chief digital officers, etc.—were empowered to drive AI adoption for employees across enterprises. They’ve been busy organizing their data to take full advantage of large language models, setting up security protocols, training employees, building partnerships with AI hyperscalers, and launching new AI tools.

But beyond the lower-stakes productivity tools, humans keep getting in the way of further progress, and that may explain why the AI playbook is back with the CEO. Seventy-two percent of CEOs say they are now the main decision-maker on AI, twice the share from a year ago, according to a survey of 2,360 executives conducted by consulting firm BCG.

“I think CEOs are realizing they need to step in and help drive the organization change,” says Vlad Lukic, the global leader of BCG’s tech and digital advantage practice, in an interview with Fortune.

They’re also feeling the pressure: half of them believe they have to get their AI strategy right if they want to keep their jobs, the survey showed. But CEOs are also more optimistic about AI’s potential for a return on investment in 2026 than last year (82% agree with this sentiment). They are also spending more. Corporate AI efforts will account for about 1.7% of revenue in 2026, more than twice the increase last year. All 10 industries BCG tracked are projected to spend more on AI this year.

Courtesy of BCG

JOBS RADAR

Hiring:

– Xponential Fitness is seeking a CIO, based in Irvine, California. Posted salary range: $350K-$450K/year.

– MIT Lincoln Laboratory is seeking a CIO, based in Lexington, Massachusetts. Posted salary range: $360K-$410K/year.

– Hunterdon Health is seeking a CIO, based in Flemington, New Jersey. Posted salary range: $360K-$410K/year.

– Scholar Rock is seeking a CIO/VP of IT, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Posted salary range: $300K-$400K/year.

Hired:

– Coca-Cola has appointed Sedef Salingan Sahin to serve in the newly created role of chief digital officer. Sahin joined the beverage giant in 2003 and most recently held the role of president of the Eurasia and Middle East operating unit. Sahin will oversee the digital strategy efforts that were previously overseen by President and Chief Financial Officer John Murphy.

– Adobe has appointed Lucius DiPhillips as CIO, joining the design software company after most recently serving as CIO at Airbnb. Prior to his eight-year career at the home-rental platform, DiPhillips held senior leadership roles at eBay, PayPal, Bank of America, and GE.

– Skillsoft announced the appointment of Bernard Barbour as chief technology and product officer, joining the educational technology firm after most recently serving as CTO at agricultural technology company Indigo Agriculture. Before Indigo, he spent more than a decade at customized goods producer Cimpress, where he led a global platform team of more than 700.

– ACI Worldwide has appointed JP Krishnamoorthy as chief innovation and technology officer, joining the payments software company after most recently serving as EVP of engineering, AI, cloud operations, and cybersecurity at software firm Coupa Software. He also previously held technology leadership roles at Oracle.

– DigitalOcean announced Vinay Kumar as chief product and technology officer, joining the cloud infrastructure provider from Oracle, where he most recently served as SVP of cloud engineering. Kumar spent 11 years at Oracle and also previously served as a manager at Amazon Web Services.

– IonQ announced the appointment of Katie Arrington as CIO and has expanded the scope of work for Leslie Kershaw, who will now serve as chief information security officer and report to Arrington. Prior to joining the quantum computing company, Arrington served as CIO for the War Department. She is also a former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives.

– Komodo Health has appointed Amit Sangani as CTO to lead the medical data analytics company’s technology, engineering, and AI platform strategy. Sangani joins Komodo after 11 years at Meta, where he most recently worked with the tech giant’s Superintelligence Labs on large-scale AI systems. Prior to Meta, Sangani co-founded and served as CTO of messaging software provider MightyText.

– Yesway named Robert Hampton as CTO, where he will lead the IT strategy and all aspects of enterprise technology for the Texas-based convenience store operator. Hampton joins Yesway from convenience and fuel retailer Jacksons Companies, where he served as CIO. He also held previously held technology leadership roles at infrastructure firm AECOM.

– RLDatix appointed Richard Jarvis as CTO, where he will oversee platform architecture, engineering, cloud, cybersecurity, and data for the healthcare software provider. He previously served as CTO for electronic patient record systems for EMIS Health. He also held senior leadership roles at HP Enterprise , BAE Systems, and Detica.