Trump in Davos: ‘The West Cannot Import Foreign Cultures’ from Failed Nations Like Somalia

  

On Wednesday, January 21, 2026, President Donald Trump delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he warned that the West must not "mass import foreign cultures" from what he described as failed societies.

 

Key details from his remarks regarding immigration and culture include:

 

    Warning Against "Foreign Cultures": Trump explicitly stated, "The situation in Minnesota reminds us that the West cannot mass import foreign cultures, which have failed to ever build a successful society of their own".

 

    Criticism of Somalia: He singled out Somalia as a "failed" nation, asserting it has no functioning government or military. He used recent fraud investigations in Minnesota involving members of the Somali community to argue that such immigration threatens Western values.

 

    Attack on Representative Ilhan Omar: During his remarks, Trump attacked Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali immigrant from Minnesota, claiming she "comes from a country that's not a country" and shouldn't be "telling us how to run America".

    Context of the Speech: The address was broad in scope, also focusing on his renewed demands for the United States to acquire Greenland and criticizing European allies for their economic and energy policies.

 

 

“President Donald Trump warned that the West must not import foreign cultures from failed nation-states like Somalia, during a speech in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday.

 

While speaking about the billions in fraud uncovered by federal investigators in Minnesota’s massive Somali immigrant community, Trump told Western leaders to stop importing immigrants from “failed” cultures in the hopes that they will assimilate to Western customs.

 

“The situation in Minnesota reminds us that the West cannot import foreign cultures which have failed to build a successful society of their own,” Trump said. “I mean, we’re taking people from Somalia and Somalia is a failed, it’s not a nation — got no government, got no military, got no police, got no nothing.”

 

Recent Census Bureau data revealed that nearly every Somali household with children in Minnesota is on one or more forms of welfare, and about 66 percent are in poverty or near the poverty line.

 

This week, similar Census Bureau data discovered that about 85 percent of Afghan immigrant households with children are on welfare, just as the nation’s Afghan population has exploded from 22,000 in 1990 to 234,000 in 2024.

 

In Minnesota, federal investigators and citizen journalists say they have unraveled vast networks of fraud among the state’s Somali population — including defrauding federal taxpayer dollars through fake nonprofits, daycare centers, medical transportation companies, and addiction rehab centers.”