Public Occurrences January 23, 2026

Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank President, Walked out of U.S. Commerce Secretary's Speech ("Capitalism has a new sheriff in town, President Trump") at Davos, now wants to make nice

Uber-respected, Ms. Lagarde nonetheless pushed back on Mark Carney's assertion of a "rupture" in the international order:

"I'm not exactly on the same page as Mark. I'm not sure that we should be talking about rupture. I think we should be talking about alternatives. We should be identifying, much more so than we have probably in the past, the weaknesses, the sore points, the dependencies, the autonomy,"

Well, you say potahto, Mark say potato, Mme. President, but you're talking about the same tuber: "alternatives", "weaknesses," "sore points," "dependencies," "autonomy".

World Trade Organization chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is saying potato more clearly: 

"...the old order was also not going to return, uncertainty would linger and countries must invest in their own resilience. If I was running a country, I'd be trying to strengthen myself and my region, and I'd be looking at my region and then building resilience."

Exactly what Carney said. lol!

"I don't think we'll go back to where we were."

Seconding Carney.

Last word to the esteemed Christine Lagarde:

"We have heard quite a lot of European-bashing in the last few days, but if anything, it has been good, and we should say 'thank you' to the bashers, because I think it has given us a complete realisation of the fact that we have to be more focused; we have to work on those plans B."

Oh my God, Mme Lagarde, I am so SORRY I gave you the last word!

You go first in saying "thank you to the bashers". Mark has your back. lolol

Reuters

7:09 pm:

U.S. Officially Leaves World Health Organization

1:11 pm:

Italian PM Giorgia Meloni Tells EU Colleagues The Will Lose in Fight With Trump

politico eu

That is contra to the lesson that other European leaders took from Davos, which was that standing up to Trump works.