Watch January 16
Watch January 16
Good morning!
January 16 is a date on which several pivotal world events have transpired over recent decades. Our publisher, Gerald Flurry, documents these in his booklet January 16: God’s Miracle Day.
We pay particular attention to this date because of its connection to the man who pioneered the Trumpet’s understanding of prophecy, world news and so much more. Read Mr. Flurry’s feature story this morning, the cover of our January Trumpet issue, “The Legacy of Herbert W. Armstrong.”
What momentous events will happen on Jan. 16, 2026? Stay tuned.
Europe sending troops to Greenland: In an extraordinary rebuke to nato ally America, European powers are deploying military personnel to Greenland.
- President Emmanuel Macron announced yesterday that France is sending troops that will be accompanied by additional air, sea and land assets in the coming days. The purpose of their deployment is to “show the United States that nato is present,” France’s polar and maritime ambassador, Oliver Poivre d’Arvor, explained.
- Germany also sent “experienced soldiers, including logisticians and air transport experts” to Greenland today, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry told Bild. They were originally meant to depart yesterday. Under Danish leadership, together with Estonia, France, Great Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Canada, they will explore how a joint large-scale exercise can be conducted in Greenland.
These deployments come after an hour of talks yesterday at the White House between top U.S., Danish and Greenlandic diplomats highlighted a “fundamental disagreement,” in the words of Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.
They signal Europe’s strong resistance to U.S. threats to acquire Greenland, claiming that a nato mission, not the U.S. alone, is needed to protect the autonomous territory.
Meanwhile, 78 percent of Germans say that Trump’s policies threaten nato, according to a zdf poll published today. This is the beginning of a massive rift between nato allies that will soon erupt into war.
A spokeswoman for EU Foreign Affairs Representative Kaja Kallas said yesterday that, in the event of a violent conflict over Greenland, Germany and the other EU states would be required to assist at Denmark’s request because Greenland is part of Denmark’s territory and thus falls under the mutual solidarity clause in Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union.
Troop deployments are not Europe’s only way of pushing back. Bild asked today: “Is U.S. Debt Our Greatest Weapon Against Trump’s Threats?
- This question, in Germany’s largest newspaper (and on this particular date), shows how serious Europeans are about fighting Donald Trump.
- U.S. economist Kenneth Rogoff told Bild: “Overall, European governments’ holdings of treasury bills are small compared to Asia, but the market would be thrown into turmoil. If panic set in and all foreigners sold their government bonds, the amount would total nearly $9 trillion and have a huge impact.”
U.S. federal debt is at an unfathomable $38 trillion and growing by $6 billion per day. This reckless spending leaves the U.S. vulnerable. The Europeans could threaten the stability of U.S. financial markets—and the U.S. government and society—by selling its treasuries. However, they would need to be prepared to stand independently from the U.S.
The Bible reveals that economic warfare will be Europe’s first strike against the U.S. Isaiah 23 and Deuteronomy 28:52 reveal that Europe will coordinate an economic siege against America with the help of Asia. Latin America will also join this siege. “America Is Being Besieged Economically” explains these prophecies and how they connect to the current danger.
- Preparations for this siege are already being laid. Earlier this week, Germany and India signed agreements to further strengthen bilateral trade and cooperation. Tomorrow, the European Union and the Latin American trade bloc mercosur sign the largest free trade agreement in the world.
Once these trade alliances launch an open trade war, America is weakened, and European militaries are united, the conflict will turn bloody.
Trump’s Insurrection Act threat: If Minnesota officials can’t or won’t stop rioters from attacking federal agents enforcing immigration laws, President Donald Trump threatened yesterday, he’ll invoke the Insurrection Act.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the patriots of ice, who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the Insurrection Act, which many presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great state,” he posted on Truth Social.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on December 23 that the president could not deploy National Guard troops to Chicago to deal with rising crime, because his administration had “failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois.” But in a footnote to the majority opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that the ruling “does not address the president’s authority under the Insurrection Act.”
- That act, passed in 1807, empowers the president to deploy the U.S. military or National Guard to put down armed rebellion against the federal government.
- The Supreme Court ruled in 1827 that the authority to decide whether a situation warrants invoking the Insurrection Act “belongs exclusively to the president.”
What is at stake here is more than unrest or even bloodshed limited to one American city. Ezekiel 5:12 prophesies about the end-time nations of Israel, principally America and Britain, and warns that, because these peoples have rejected God, one third of them will die from “pestilence.”
- This word denotes civil war, rioting, terrorism and famine in the U.S., 10 times more deaths than in the Bolshevik Revolution, the bloodiest civil war in history.
Such bloodshed will be caused by more than just a crime wave. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in Ezekiel—The End-Time Prophet:
The pestilence, or plague of violence, will cause many health problems that lead to famine. Sewage disposal will be disrupted. Gas lines will be broken. Jobs will be lost. Society will unravel, and the collective panic will bring a stock market disaster! It will get so bad that violence and famine will take millions of lives! … Terrorist attacks, rioting and burning are the main thrust of the pestilence described in Ezekiel 5. And this rioting will spread to other Israelite nations!
Thomas Jefferson signed the Insurrection Act to help the president prevent such calamities, but cities in America and the other nations of Israel are filled with sin and rebellion against God—and no emergency measures can stop them from experiencing the dire consequences.
IN OTHER NEWS
South Korea’s president may face death penalty: Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to five years in prison today on charges that included the use of government forces to block his own arrest following his failed attempt to impose martial law in 2024. Yoon’s declaration of martial law to supposedly thwart “anti-state forces” within the government stunned the nation and plunged it into its worst political crisis in decades. Hours later, the parliament voted 190-0 to reverse it on the grounds that Yoon was only trying to protect himself from impeachment. He blocked the enforcement of a court-issued arrest warrant with hundreds of presidential security officers, and he attempted to do the same when a second warrant was issued, but was finally arrested by police. Today’s conviction marks the start of an unprecedented reckoning in South Korean history, with Yoon still facing other charges, including insurrection and a possible death sentence. While democracy is better than other human systems of government, South Korea’s crisis underscores the fact that even this system is fundamentally inadequate for justly governing mankind. To understand the only government that truly works, read “Democracy Is Dying.”
Eight of the world’s top 10 universities are Chinese: Chinese universities have pushed Harvard down to the world’s No. 3 spot, according to Leiden University’s 2025 rankings. Furthermore, eight of the world’s top 10 universities are now Chinese. The reason for this evaluation is that Chinese universities are producing more research than their American counterparts. According to Rafael Reif, a former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the number of papers from China dwarfs what the U.S. produces. The decline of America’s educational institutions is a symptom of the country’s overall decline in the wake of China’s rise, a trend the Trumpet has warned about for decades.
Did Bibi ask Trump not to attack Iran? Several stories are out that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the United States to delay or halt any attacks on Iran. The reports say the reason was that Israel is unprepared to handle an Iranian counterattack on its homeland. While Netanyahu may have asked the U.S. to reconsider strikes, it’s unlikely the reason was unpreparedness: Israel has spent the past six months since Iran’s most recent ballistic missile attacks bracing itself for another round. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that President Trump didn’t attack because several inside his cabinet said a single strike couldn’t guarantee regime change. All could be smoke and mirrors, especially since Israel’s Mossad director arrived in the U.S. this morning, reportedly to discuss potential action on Iran. We watch and wait.
U.S. carrier strike group heading to Middle East: The USS Abraham Lincoln is moving from the South China Sea toward the Arabian Sea as tensions between the U.S. and Iran rise. The Pentagon announced yesterday that the aircraft carrier and its strike group, which includes fighter jets, guided missile destroyers, support vessels and at least one attack submarine, would steam westward after advisers informed President Trump that the U.S. military needs more troops and equipment in the Middle East to launch any large-scale strike while still protecting U.S. forces in the region from retaliation.
President Trump gets the Nobel Peace Prize—sort of: Last year’s laureate for the Nobel Peace Prize, María Corina Machado, visited the White House yesterday, where she gifted U.S. President Donald Trump her prize. Machado, the leader of the opposition to Venezuela’s regime, told the media it was “a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom.” Trump called the medal “a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.” The Norwegian Nobel Committee considers the prize nontransferable, but Machado probably hopes the gesture will result in her receiving a position in Venezuela’s new government structure now that President Trump has arrested former dictator Nicolás Maduro. Trump has claimed he should win the prize for all of his peace deals over the past year, but as the Trumpet has explained, his peacemaking has a fatal flaw.
British Columbia to recriminalize hard drugs: Health Minister Josie Osborne announced Wednesday that the Canadian province will let a program that decriminalized hard drug use expire at the end of the month. “The pilot hasn’t delivered the results that we hoped for,” she said. The province operated the first government-supervised injection site in the world and allowed possession and use of up to 2.5 grams of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine and mdma. The expiration of this “pioneering” program shows that letting people have drugs is not the way to win the war on drugs.
