European stocks close flat following Trump’s Davos speech, mining names rise

European stocks finished Wednesday’s trading mixed following U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as the prospect of an EU-U.S. trade war weighed on investor sentiment.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed the session just above the flatline, trimming earlier losses, as regional bourses and sectors finished mixed.

Trump addressed the WEF at 1.30 p.m. London time and, separately, CNBC’s Joe Kernen is due to interview the president on the sidelines of the event.

Trump reiterated his desire to annex Greenland, calling for “immediate negotiations” on acquiring the Arctic territory, but saying for the first time he “won’t use force.” He also took aim at Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, former U.S. President Joe Biden and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, telling attendees “the United States is keeping the whole world afloat.”

Shortly after he finished speaking, European lawmakers said they had suspended the approval of the EU-U.S. trade agreement reached last year.

Bernd Lange, who chairs the European Parliament’s international trade committee, said in a press conference in Strasbourg, France, that the tariff threats were an “attack” on the EU’s economic and territorial sovereignty.

Trump recently threatened new tariffs on a raft of European countries if they block his takeover bid. His ramped-up rhetoric on the U.S. needing to bring Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, under Washington’s control — and the subsequent tariff threats — sparked a sell-off of global assets on Tuesday and raised questions about the resurgence of the so-called sell America trade that first appeared following Trump’s “liberation day” announcements last year.

Speaking at the WEF on Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen labeled Trump’s new tariff proposals a “mistake” that would plunge both Europe and the U.S. into “a dangerous downward spiral.”