US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said in Davos that Denmark is irrelevant and that he is not concerned about Europe’s possible withdrawal from the US government bond market, Politico reports.
Bessent told reporters in Davos on the morning of the 21st of January that Denmark’s investments in US Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, are irrelevant and that he is not at all worried.
Bessent was responding to talk that European leaders might try to put pressure on the US by selling its bonds. Representatives of the Danish pension fund “AkademikerPension” informed on the 20th of January that the fund has decided to get rid of its US Treasury bonds. The fund justified this by indicating that US President Donald Trump’s threat to take Greenland by force is one of the factors indicating that the US has lost credibility.
The issue of getting rid of US bonds was raised over the weekend by Deutsche Bank’s chief foreign exchange strategist George Saravelos, but Bessent said he had received a call from Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing, who confirmed that Saravelos’s comments did not reflect the bank’s official position.
Bessent insisted that the issue had been blown up by “fake news” media outlets, led by the Financial Times.
US bond and stock markets fell sharply on the 20th of January, as concerns about a possible tariff war over the US stance on Greenland resurfaced.
Bessent noted that the stock market was also heavily influenced by fluctuations in the Japanese bond market. He said it was difficult to separate the fluctuations caused by “the noise around Greenland,” but his Japanese counterpart had promised to do everything in his power to maintain market stability in Tokyo.
Earlier in the day, Besant repeatedly criticized European leaders for their inflammatory comments on the Greenland issue, and condemned the Europeans’ announcement to send military personnel to the Arctic island. He said it was unclear what the countries that offered to send troops meant, and that it was a quixotic move.
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