After President Donald Trump took the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos and delivered a blunt warning about the survival of Western civilization, Somali-born activist and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali didn’t hesitate to say what many leaders politely avoid: Trump is right. And not just right in a general sense—right about the single most important issue facing the West today.
Trump startled the Davos audience by declaring that “the West cannot mass import foreign cultures,” pointing specifically to the situation in Minnesota as a cautionary example. He argued that Western prosperity and progress did not emerge by accident or from tax policy alone, but from a unique culture that America and Europe share and must actively defend. According to Trump, that culture is a “precious inheritance” that lifted the West from the Dark Ages to the heights of human achievement—and one that must be protected if it is to survive. A radical idea in Davos, apparently.
Hirsi Ali told Fox News Digital that Trump wasn’t just making an important point, but the most important one. She praised the president for using the platform of the U.S. presidency to deliver what she described as a wake-up call to both Americans and Europeans. In her view, Trump’s message cuts through years of denial about the cultural foundations that made Western societies successful in the first place.
Drawing from her own life experience, Hirsi Ali explained why Trump’s remarks resonated so deeply. As a child in Somalia, she endured severe female genital mutilation, later fleeing the country to escape a forced marriage. She eventually served as a lawmaker in the Netherlands and is now based in the United States, where she advocates for women’s rights, critiques Islam, and openly supports Western greatness. When she speaks about failed states and cultural breakdown, she does so from lived experience—not from a Davos cocktail lounge.
Hirsi Ali echoed Trump’s argument that culture, values, heritage, and national identity matter more than even economic or military strength. While those elements are important, she said, they rest on a foundation of shared values. Without that foundation, the rest eventually crumbles, no matter how much money is spent pretending otherwise.
Regarding Trump’s criticism of the Somali immigrant population’s involvement in the massive Minnesota fraud scheme, Hirsi Ali said she “wholeheartedly” agrees with the president. She stated bluntly that Somalia has failed to function as a nation, citing destructive ideologies such as clan-based systems, Islam, and Marxism. According to her, repeated attempts to build something stable in Somalia have collapsed, and many Somalis have fled with those failed ideas still intact.
Hirsi Ali warned that what is happening in Minnesota exposes what she called a subversive agenda to transform and Islamize the United States using American institutions and the language of civil rights. She said Somali immigrants exploit welfare systems while deflecting criticism by accusing anyone who questions them of racism or Islamophobia. If Western countries continue importing large numbers of people who depend on welfare and refuse to contribute or assimilate, she warned, the result will be cultural, national, and political suicide.
To counter this, Hirsi Ali argued that European nations must follow the Trump administration’s example by sealing their borders and reexamining welfare systems she described as unsustainably expensive. In Minnesota, she called for a hardline approach toward assimilation, saying immigrants must be forced to integrate into American culture or face denaturalization if they refuse.
She emphasized that this moment is not just another political debate, but an existential one. Hirsi Ali described Trump’s Davos speech as a breakthrough, saying it finally pushed European leaders to understand that defending Western civilization must be priority No. 1.
In a room full of global elites accustomed to vague slogans and carefully sanitized language, Trump spoke plainly—and someone who knows the consequences of cultural collapse backed him without hesitation. Leadership, clarity, and the courage to tell uncomfortable truths may not win applause in Davos, but they just might help save the West.
