By CHAN HO-HIM and MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writers

Global markets mostly declined Wednesday while trading on Wall Street stabilized somewhat ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

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Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average each ticked down 0.1% before the bell, while Nasdaq futures retreated 0.3%. All three indices are coming off steep losses from a day earlier after Trump threatened to slap higher tariffs on eight European countries over their opposition to his push for U.S. control of Greenland.

Gold prices crossed the $4,800 mark for the first time, gaining 2.2% to $4,873 per ounce as money flowed into assets considered to be safe havens at times of uncertainty.

Trump’s plane landed in Switzerland following hours of delay after a minor electrical issue aboard Air Force One forced a return to Washington to switch aircraft.

Trump told reporters he planned to highlight his administration’s accomplishments during his speech later Wednesday to world leaders, elites and billionaires gathered in Davos.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who spoke on a panel on Tuesday, said the U.S. message was that “globalization has failed.”

Trump has said he will impose 10% tariffs on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland beginning in February. That would be on top of a 15% tariff specified by a trade agreement with the European Union that has yet to be ratified.

European leaders have hit back as Washington’s relations with its Western allies sour, considering countermeasures, including perhaps slow-walking ratification of the trade agreement or ordering retaliatory tariffs, analysts say.

In equities markets, Netflix tumbled 7.2% after the streaming service reported slowing subscriber growth last year, underscoring the importance of its contested $72 billion bid to take over Warner Bros.’ movie studio and HBO Max.

Netflix topped Wall Street’s fourth-quarter sales and profit forecasts, but the company’s subscriber growth fell to 23 million in 2025, down from a gain of 41 million in 2024.

Kraft-Heinz tumbled 5.5% after Berkshire Hathaway warned investors Tuesday that it may be interested in selling its 325 million shares in the name brand food giant that former CEO Warren Buffett helped create back in 2015.

Berkshire took a $3.76 billion write-down on its Kraft-Heinz stake last summer. Buffett said last fall that he was disappointed in Kraft Heinz’ plan to split the company in two, and Berkshire’s two representatives resigned from the Kraft board last spring.

In energy markets, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 71 cents to $59.65 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, shed 88 cents to $64.04 per barrel.

Natural gas futures are up more than 8% Wednesday and have soared 30% in less than a week as a cold snap and brutal storms hit large swaths of the U.S.

At midday in Europe, Germany’s DAX shed 1% while the CAC 40 in Paris and Britain’s FTSE 100 each dipped 0.3%.

In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.4% to 52,774.64. Markets in Japan have been riled both by geopolitical uncertainty and by domestic issues.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has called a snap election for Feb. 8, sending yields of long-term government bonds to record levels. The assumption is that Takaichi, who is capitalizing on strong public support ratings to try to consolidate a majority for her Liberal Democratic Party, will cut taxes and boost spending, adding to the challenges Japan faces in handling its massive government debt.

The yield on the 40-year Japanese government bond was trading at 4.061% early Wednesday, down from the all-time high of 4.22% that it hit on Tuesday.

South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.5% to 4,909.93.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rebounded to add 0.4% to 26,585.06. The Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% higher, to 4,116.94.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gave back 0.4% to 8,782.90.

Taiwan’s Taiex fell 1.6% and India’s Sensex lost 0.4%.

PARIS (AP) — France’s sports minister says her country is not currently thinking about boycotting the soccer World Cup in the United States amid growing tensions related to Donald Trump’s quest to control Greenland.

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“At the moment we are speaking, there is no desire from the ministry to boycott this major, much-anticipated competition,” sports minister Marina Ferrari told reporters on Tuesday evening. “That said, I am not prejudging what might happen.”

Ferrari added that she wants to keep sports separate from politics.

“The 2026 World Cup is an extremely important moment for all sports lovers,” she said.

With the tournament kicking off in June in the United States, Canada and Mexico, the U.S. president’s ambitions to wrest control of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark has the potential to tear relations with European allies.

In France, leftist lawmaker Eric Coquerel said the opportunity of a boycott by France, a two-time winner of the men’s World Cup, should be considered.

“Seriously, can we really imagine going to play the footie World Cup in a country that attacks its ‘neighbors,’ threatens to invade Greenland, undermines international law, wants to torpedo the UN,” he asked in a message posted on social media.

“The question seriously arises, especially since it is still possible to refocus the event on Mexico and Canada,” he wrote.

France lost to Argentina in the final of the World Cup in 2022.

The Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday it will appeal the November ruling in favor of Meta in its antitrust case against the social media giant.

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The FTC said it continues to allege that, for more than a decade, Meta Platforms Inc. has “illegally maintained a monopoly” in social networking through anticompetitive conduct “by buying the significant competitive threats it identified in Instagram and WhatsApp.”

Meta had prevailed over the existential challenge to its business that could have forced the tech giant to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp after a judge ruled that the company does not hold a monopoly in social networking.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued his ruling on Nov. 18 after the historic antitrust trial wrapped up in late May. His decision runs in sharp contrast to two separate rulings that branded Google an illegal monopoly in both search and online advertising, dealing regulatory blows to the tech industry that for years enjoyed nearly unbridled growth.

In a statement, Meta said the court’s decision “to reject the FTC’s arguments is correct, and recognizes the fierce competition we face. We will remain focused on innovating and investing in America.”

by SAM McNEIL, Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — Rattled by President Donald Trump’s aggression towards Greenland, the European Union is readying counter-measures against the United States.

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But as primarily a trading bloc of 27 nations, the EU’s toolkit is mostly financial instruments, from steep tariffs on U.S. goods to the so-called “trade bazooka” touted by French President Emmanuel Macron.

The term is shorthand for the bloc’s Anti-Coercion Instrument, or ACI, that could sanction individuals or institutions found to be putting undue pressure on the EU.

Those sanctions could inflict untold billions of dollars in costs to U.S. companies by restricting EU market access, barring them from EU public tenders, and potentially limiting foreign direct investment and curtailing the export and import of goods and services.

So far, there’s little backing in the 27-nation EU to use it, with the exception of France.

Macron warned in Davos on Tuesday that additional tariffs by the U.S. could force the EU to use its anti-coercion mechanism for the first time.

“The crazy thing is that we could find ourselves in a situation where we use the anti-coercion mechanism for the very first time against the United States,” said Macron, arguing that allied countries should be focusing instead on bringing peace to Ukraine.

“Can you imagine it? It’s crazy. I regret it, but it is the consequence of unnecessary aggressiveness. Still, we must all remain calm.”

Macron described the mechanism as “a powerful instrument and we should not hesitate to deploy it in today’s tough environment.”

EU leaders will hold an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday over tensions with Trump.

The ACI was established by the European Commission in 2021 after Beijing restricted trade to Lithuania over its ties with Taiwan, which is claimed by China as its territory.

“The primary objective of the ACI is deterrence. The instrument will, therefore, be most successful if there is no need to use it,” according to a commission statement issued before the dispute over Greenland.

It would take at least six months to activate the ACI.

The value of EU-U.S. trade in goods and services amounted to 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion) in 2024, or an average of 4.6 billion euros a day, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat.

Europe’s biggest exports to the U.S. are pharmaceuticals, cars, aircraft, chemicals, medical instruments, and wine and spirits.

Associated Press writer Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.