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In a free-wheeling speech to world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Trump made a series of contested claims.

Trump touched on his desire to obtain Greenland from Denmark – which he referred to as a “small ask”, America’s contribution to Nato, and wind energy in China.

His address – which lasted for more than an hour – contained a number of false assertions which BBC Verify has been looking at.

For weeks, Trump has spoken about his desire to acquire Greenland, a largely self-governing territory of Denmark. He has said it is critical to US national security.

At Davos, he said that after World War Two “we gave Greenland back to Denmark,” adding: “How stupid were we to do that?”

But it was not America’s to give back.

In 1933 an international court – a predecessor to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – ruled that Greenland belonged to Denmark.

In 1941 – following Denmark’s surrender to Germany the previous year – the US and Danish representatives signed an agreement allowing the US to defend Greenland to prevent the Nazis from taking it over.

This led to the construction of US bases on the island as well as the deployment of US troops.

However, the agreement did not involve a transfer of sovereignty, meaning Greenland never became US territory.

The US president criticised Nato and claimed that “the United States was paying for virtually 100% of Nato”.

He said of the level of contributions from countries which are members of the military alliance: “They didn’t pay the 2% and now they’re paying the 5%”.

Neither of these claims are correct.

In recent years US spending on defence accounted for about 70% of the total spent by Nato countries.

In 2024, that went down to 65% and, in 2025, it is estimated to have been 62%, as all Nato members were set to have spent at least 2% of their GDP on defence for the first time.

The US president has got these countries to commit to spending more on defence but the 5% that Trump is talking about is a long-term aim – to be achieved by 2035.

Currently, no Nato member spends that much, as even Poland – the country spending the most of its GDP on defence – is estimated to have spent just below 4.5% in 2025.

Trump claimed that the US had “never gotten anything” from Nato and “we’ve never asked for anything”.

The Nato website states that “collective defence is NATO’s most fundamental principle” and Article 5 of its founding treaty states that “an armed attack against one NATO member shall be considered an attack against them all”.

The US is the only member of the alliance to invoke Article 5, doing so in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Nato nations contributed troops and military equipment to the US-led war in Afghanistan which followed.

Among the countries that contributed was Denmark, which suffered among the highest per capita casualty rates of the US allies. They were largely deployed to heavily contested areas alongside British forces in Helmand province.

Trump also criticised wind energy – a familiar target which he said was part of a “new green scam”.

He singled out China, claiming that although it made lots of wind turbines, he had not “been able to find any wind farms in China.”

China has one of the largest wind farms in the world at Gansu, which can be seen from space.

China generates more wind energy than any other country, according to Our World in Data. Its statistics show that in 2024 China generated 997 terawatt-hours from wind.

That was more than double that of the US – which was in second place.

President Trump also singled out the UK, criticising its energy policies.

Referring to North Sea oil, Trump incorrectly said: “They [the UK] make it impossible for the oil companies to go, they take 92% of the revenues.”

Oil and gas firms operating in the North Sea pay a 30% corporation tax on their profits and a supplementary 10% rate on top of that. This is higher than the 25% corporation tax paid by other large companies.

In November 2024, the government raised the windfall tax on oil and gas companies from 35% to 38%.

That takes the total tax on North Sea Oil to 78%, which is paid on profits not revenue.

The windfall tax, which was introduced by the Conservatives in 2022 as a response to rising energy bills, is due to expire in 2030.

President Trump also spoke about the investments his administration had secured for America.

He said, “we’ve secured commitments for a record-breaking 18 trillion dollars”, and later on repeated, “18 trillion dollars is invested”.

He has made similar claims before – in October he said the US had attracted investments worth $17tn (£12.7tn) – but there is no publicly available evidence to support figures this big.

A White House website, last updated in November, aims to track “new investment in U.S. manufacturing, technology, and infrastructure”. It states that investments under Trump total $9.6tn (£7.1tn).

The biggest amount on the list is a $1.4tn (£1tn) investment in manufacturing and industry by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The website for the UAE embassy in Washington DC says the UAE is “working with the Trump Administration to make a historic $1.4 trillion investment in the US over the next decade”.

Greg Auclair, a statistician at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told BBC Verify the White House tracker “includes pledges that may not materialize – for example the EU trade deal now appears frozen due to Greenland tensions”.

On Wednesday the European Parliament’s international trade committee said it was suspending the ratification of the deal “until the US decides to re-engage on a path of cooperation rather than confrontation”.

Auclair added that although there has been an uptick in foreign investment in the US over the past year, “it will take several years before the results of the Trump administration’s investment push become clear”.

Reporting by Tom Edgington, Lucy Gilder, Matt Murphy, Nicholas Barrett and Anthony Reuben.

Former intelligence official Egisto Ott goes on trial in Vienna on Thursday, accused of spying for Russia in what is being dubbed Austria’s biggest spy trial in years.

Egisto Ott, 63, is charged with having handed over information to Russian intelligence officers and to Jan Marsalek, the fugitive executive of collapsed German payments firm Wirecard.

Ott denies the charges.

Jan Marsalek, who is also an Austrian citizen, is wanted by German police for alleged fraud and is currently believed to be in Moscow, having fled via Austria in 2020.

The subject of an Interpol Red Notice, he is alleged to be an intelligence asset for the FSB, Russia’s secretive security service.

The spy scandal has revived fears that Austria remains a hotbed of Russian espionage activity and observers will also be watching closely for details that could emerge about Marsalek.

Prosecutors in Vienna say Egisto Ott “abused his authority” as an Austrian intelligence official by collecting large amounts of personal data, such as locations, vehicle registration numbers, or travel movements.

They say he did this between 2015 and 2020 without authorisation, often using national and international police databases.

Prosecutors also charge him with supporting “a secret intelligence service of the Russian Federation to the detriment of the Republic of Austria” by collecting secret facts and a large amount of personal data from police databases between 2017 and 2021.

They say Egisto Ott gave this information to Jan Marsalek and unknown representatives of the Russian intelligence service, and received payment in return.

In 2022, prosecutors say, Jan Marsalek commissioned him to obtain a laptop containing secret electronic security hardware used by EU states for secure electronic communication. The laptop, they say, was handed over to the Russian intelligence service.

He is also suspected, reports say, of having passed phone data from senior Austrian interior ministry officials to Russia.

Austria’s Standard newspaper says Egisto Ott apparently obtained the work phones after they accidentally fell into the River Danube on an interior ministry boating trip.

He is alleged to have copied their contents and passed them on to Jan Marsalek, and Moscow.

Egisto Ott is charged with abuse of authority and corruption and espionage against Austria and faces up to five years in prison, if he is found guilty.

When he was arrested in 2024, Austria’s then Chancellor, Karl Nehammer, described the case as “a threat to democracy and our country’s national security”.

In a separate development, prosecutors in the Austrian town of Wiener Neustadt have told the BBC that a former MP, Thomas Schellenbacher, has been charged with helping Marsalek to escape following the collapse of the Wirecard company in 2020, when it emerged that €1.9bn was missing from its accounts.

Schellenbacher is alleged to have helped Jan Marsalek fly to Belarus, from Bad Vöslau in Austria, in June 2020.

Schellenbacher was an MP for the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), which has been accused by Austria’s Green Party, now in opposition, of enabling Russian espionage, of acting as “an extension of Russia’s arm” in Austria.

The FPÖ and its leader Herbert Kickl have denied the allegations – and have not faced any legal action in connection with any of them.

Marsalek, who was the Wirecard’s Chief Operating Officer, has since been charged with fraud and embezzlement, suspected of having inflated company’s balance sheet total and sales volume.

He is also believed to have been the controller of a group of Bulgarians who were convicted in London in 2025, of spying for Russia.

Messages from that trial reveal Marsalek has had plastic surgery to alter his appearance as well as details of his life as a fugitive.

“I’m off to bed. Had another cosmetic surgery, trying to look differently, and I am dead tired and my head hurts,” he wrote to one of the Bulgarians, Roussev, on Telegram in February 2022.

In another, dated 11 May 2021, Roussev congratulated Marsalek for learning Russian.

“Well I am trying to improve my skills on a few fronts. Languages is one of them,” the Austrian responded.

“In my new role as an international fugitive I must outperform James Bond.”

Blake Lively referred to Justin Baldoni as a “doofus director” and a “clown”, according to newly unsealed court documents from the actress’s legal case.

The pair starred together in It Ends With Us, but Lively sued Baldoni in December 2024, accusing him of sexual harassment and waging a smear campaign against her. Baldoni strongly denies the claims and is defending the lawsuit, which named him and his production company, Wayfarer studios, which was behind It Ends With Us.

Text messages from 2023 between Lively and people close to her appear to show that Lively called Baldoni a “rabid pig”, while her friend Taylor Swift suggested Baldoni knew the lawsuit was coming “because he’s gotten out his tiny violin”.

Baldoni’s $400m (£295m) counter-suit was dismissed by a judge last June.

Lively’s case is set to go to trial in May.

The newly unsealed documents show both Lively and Baldoni venting to friends and colleagues about filming It Ends With Us, and the subsequent press tour, ahead of the film’s release in August 2024.

In the messages, Lively referred to Baldoni as “this doofus director of my movie” and described him as “a clown” who “thinks he’s a writer now”.

In their filing earlier this week, Lively’s team did not deny the language she had used but said the text messages were missing context.

They referred the court to the “complete” text exchange, including subsequent messages from Lively to Baldoni which said “we all benefit” from her relationship with Swift and her husband Ryan Reynolds, and “you will too, I can promise you”.

Sigrid McCawley, a member of Lively’s legal team, said in a statement to the BBC the newly unsealed evidence “shows the concerns of Ms. Lively and others were documented in real-time as early as Spring 2023, and Wayfarer understood them as “sexual harassment” concerns.”

McCawley’s statement continued, “The evidence also documents how Wayfarer refused to investigate, but instead attempted to “bury” Ms. Lively and others who spoke up through retaliation.”

Baldoni’s legal team has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment, but Bryan Feldman, a lawyer for Baldoni and Wayfarer, told CNN, “the evidence does not support the claims as a matter of law. A simple read of the newly released message exchanges make the truth abundantly clear. We remain confident in the legal process and clearing the names of all of the Justin Baldoni parties.”

The messages also show Lively saying of Baldoni: “Despite his repeated disturbing behaviour and acts, I still feel bad for him.

“To be reminded multiple times daily that he’s smearing me for… asking him not to sexually or emotionally harass me? For making his movie better? For calling in all the favours to turn out all the biggest musicians and entertainers to contribute to making his movie better? For leading a marketing campaign for free?”

She continued: “I literally don’t know a single thing I’ve done that he can smear me about. Ryan [Reynolds] says [Baldoni] should be writing me apology and thank you letters every day. And instead he chooses to make a monster outta me.

“But what’s my crime. I’ve only ever stayed focused on the work and given him every opportunity to make it better. And he just keeps behaving like a rabid pig.”

The messages also appear to show Lively texted Baldoni’s former The Man Enough Podcast co-host, Liz Plank in May 2023, and told her that “today I came home and cried” following an “SOS set visit”.

Plank responded by saying that she “thought maybe things had gotten better”, and that it was “astounding they have gotten away with so much”. It is unclear who “they” refers to.

The documents note that Plank recalled working on Baldoni’s set as “truly one of the worst days of [her] life”.

Later that year, Lively also sent texts to actress and co-star Jenny Slate, and said she was “dreading” going back to set and “getting hits of the experience in really upsetting ways”.

In her deposition, Slate also alleged misconduct on the set of the film, with court documents revealing that she had made complaints against Baldoni and producer Jamey Heath during the course of filming It Ends With Us.

Heath is the CEO of Wayfarer Studios.

Similarly, texts sent by Baldoni also suggest friction between him and Lively.

In February 2024, Baldoni told Heath that he was concerned that Lively would use the allegations she had made against him as leverage.

He wrote: “She had the nuclear bomb. If she doesn’t promote the movie she can leak that I’m a bad person or that she felt unsafe with me and ‘all the stuff’ she has on me. Then she’s the victim.”

Her legal filing accuses Baldoni and Heath of “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behaviour”, in addition to a hostile working environment.

The text messages were unsealed on Tuesday before a summary judgement hearing in Lively’s ongoing lawsuit that is scheduled for 22 January.