Fact Pack! WEF Showdown
By Hightower Las Vegas and RCG Economics on January 20, 2026
This week’s WWE events may be overshadowed by President Trump’s word-flinging on Wednesday in Davos at the annual WEF (World Economic Forum) gathering. Plans for oil development in Venezuela after ousting President Nicolás Maduro, annexing Greenland, and new threats of 30 percent tariff increases the EU are among the expected topics.
Anticipated repetition counter-threats of levies from the EU — characterized by one CNBC reporter as a “trade bazooka” — on about $108 billion in U.S. goods will provide all the tension needed for a “showdown” during Trump’s third visit to one of the world’s most watched economic forums.
European Council data shows trade between the EU and U.S. amounted to 1.68 trillion euros ($1.97 trillion) in 2024. Though the EU enjoys a trade surplus in goods, it has a deficit in services. All in all, the European bloc has a surplus — amounting to around 50 billion euros in 2025 (roughly $56.5 billion U.S., based on the average 2025 rate of about 1 EUR to 1.13 USD).
In addition to more than 60 world leaders, this year’s WEF speakers will include Nvidia Corp’s Jensen Huang, JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, and Exxon Mobil’s Darren Woods. Also present will be Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson, who calmly noted on Bloomberg TV yesterday that the U.S. “came out pretty OK on the tariffs” after the last go-round, adding the forward-looking view, “We’ll get through this.”
The WEF’s global risk graph for 2026 (published on January 14) showed that geo-economic confrontation was the key concern of those surveyed:
WEF data gathered from 1,300 respondents as of September 2025
Extreme Weather Risks
The comprehensive 2025 WEF risk survey of people working in business, politics, and academia across the world showed that while geoeconomic confrontation, misinformation, and societal polarization were thought to be the most likely short-term risks, extreme weather and its effects were seen as the greatest longer-term risk.
The following Statista graphic nicely illustrates WEF assessments of the most severe global risks over the next two and ten years (data collected in Aug.-Sep. 2025 and published in WEF’s annual Global Risks Report). Note that the fallout of catastrophic weather events —biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and critical changes to Earth systems — joined natural resource shortages and pollution as five of the top 10 longer-term risks:
Data collected in August and September 2025
Tech Risks
As shown in the graph above, WEF survey data reflects concerns about AI-centric risk to labor markets, information integrity, and automated weapons systems, to name a few. Respondents acknowledged that AI development and other innovation is driving growth opportunities, with enormous potential societal benefits in health, education, agriculture, and infrastructure.
Notably, misinformation + disinformation and cyber insecurity ranked second and sixth, respectively, on the WEF’s two-year global risk outlook, and negative outcomes from AI were the risk with the steepest rise in the rankings — moving from #30 on the WEF’s two-year outlook to #5 on the 10-year outlook:
WEF data gathered from 1,300 respondents as of September 2025
On a somewhat positive note, outcomes from “frontier technologies” — including quantum tech that speeds predictive modeling — moved from #33 in the two-year global risk ranking to #25 in the 10-year ranking.
G20 GDP
The latest OECD Economic Outlook (December 2025) showed that the global economy was resilient last year and is expected to remain so, despite incursions including “elevated policy uncertainty and rising barriers to trade”. According to the organization’s forecasts, global GDP growth is projected to slow from 3.2 percent in 2025 to 2.9 percent in 2026.
Among G20 economies (together accounting for approximately 80 percent of global GDP), some countries are expected to continue growing at a pace well above the average. India tops that list, with a real GDP growth expected to exceed 6 percent again this year (down from 6.7 in 2025), followed by Indonesia at 5.0 percent (equal to 2025).
China, despite structural slowdowns, is forecast to be third in the world with 4.4 percent economic growth (after seeing 5.0 percent in 2025). Saudi Arabia follows closely at 4.0 percent, boosted by (you guessed it) oil revenues and ambitious economic diversification efforts under its national “Vision 2030” plan.
Rounding out the top five is Turkey, which enjoys strong domestic and international demand for its significant services sector (tourism, banking, retail), along with a robust industrial base (textiles, vehicles, electronics). The nation also has been engaged in strategic energy infrastructure expansion, leveraging its location between Europe and the Middle East to become a crucial transit route for natural gas and pursuing ambitious plans to transform the country into a regional energy hub.
As of December 2025
Venezuela
The nation (other than Greenland) making the most U.S. headlines has many non-oil natural resources including natural gas, iron, and coal:
Infographic source: Visual Capitalist As of 2025 available data
Table:
Source: Visual Capitalist As of 2025 available data
(Caveats: Bauxite and diamond reserves are identified resources published by the Venezuelan government and have not been independently verified.
Gold totals are based on an asset-level analysis of 24 gold-bearing mines in Venezuela shared by CSIS.)
Naturally Occurring
Russia, Iran, and Qatar together hold more than half of the world’s proven natural gas reserves, a resource that plays a critical role in the global energy system: powering electricity generation, heating homes, and supporting industrial activity.
The following visualization ranks countries by their (proven) natural gas reserves, measured in trillion cubic feet:
Data source: Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2025
Top 10 table:
Data source: Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2025
Notably, before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, around 40–45 percent of EU gas imports came from Russia, but that share had fallen to 13–19 percent as of mid-2025.
Fact Pack co-publisher and HighTower wealth management advisor Mike PeQueen:
Countries with smaller natural gas reserves, including Norway, the Netherlands, and the UK, play important regional economic roles, in large part because of their proximity to major EU demand centers. Germany tops that list, along with Italy, and France. Together with the Netherlands, they account for roughly two-thirds of all EU natural gas consumption.
Carbon Consumption = Emissions
China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, producing more CO₂ than any other country by a wide margin:
As of 2024
Parsing the data:
- All non-Asian continents together (12.1 gigatons) emit less CO₂ than China (13.1)
- China, the U.S., and India account for about half (53 percent) of global CO₂ emissions
- China produces one-third 1/3rd of total global CO₂ emissions (39.63 gigatons)
(A gigaton = one billion metric tons or 1 trillion kilograms.)
Gold Rush
Talk of global volatility would not be complete without noting which nations have been amassing the most gold over the past two decades. Note that the U.S. is NOT among the top 10 nations that have been adding to their stockpile since 2000:
Graph source for net change in gold reserves: Visual Capitalist As of 2024
The U.S. still holds the most gold, by far:
Source: Best Brokers As of December 2025
NOT a Lot of Green
Source: Twitter (X)
Editor’s Note: Greenland is nowhere near the on-par-with-Canada size shown in the above Mercator projection map. It is roughly three times the size of Texas:
As of 1/19/26
Shifting Sands
We end this global edition of Fact Pack with a look at the share of the world economy (by GDP) held by the 10 developed nations in decades past:
As of 2025
Data source: WEF
On the Horizon
This week’s MarketWatch calendar:
