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After President Donald Trump took to the World Economic Forum stage in Davos to declare that Western Civilization must defend itself from an existential attack, Somali-born activist and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali said that “Trump is right.”
Trump shocked other politicians and leaders gathered in Switzerland on Tuesday night by declaring, “The West cannot mass import foreign cultures.”
“The situation in Minnesota reminds us that the West cannot mass import foreign cultures which have failed to ever build a successful society of their own,” he said. “We’re taking people from Somalia, and Somalia is a failed [state], it’s not a nation, got no government, got no police, got no military, got no nothing.”
He went on to say, “The explosion of prosperity, in conclusion, and progress that built the West did not come from our tax cuts. It ultimately came from our very special culture,” adding, “This is the precious inheritance that America and Europe have in common. We share it, we share it. But we have to keep it strong. We have to become stronger, more successful and more prosperous than ever. We have to defend that culture and rediscover the spirit that lifted the West from the depths of the Dark Ages to the pinnacle of human achievement.”
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Left: Somali-born activist, author and former Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Right: President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. (Christian Marquardt/Getty Images; Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
In response, Hirsi Ali told Fox News Digital that Trump is communicating a critical truth.
“I don’t think it’s an important thing, I think it is the most important thing,” she said. “Trump is right … and I can’t think of a better and more powerful platform than that of the president of the United States to say, ‘Hey, you guys wake up.’”
As a child in Somalia, Hirsi Ali was subjected to a severe form of female genital mutilation. Later in life, she fled the country to escape a forced marriage and served as a Dutch lawmaker. She is now based in the U.S. and uses her platform to advocate for women’s rights, critique Islam and voice support for Western greatness.
“I think every American and every European should know that what the president is trying to say is that what made America and Europe great is there’s this unique culture, if we don’t understand that culture and if we do not defend it, we risk losing it,” she said.
“The economy is very important. Military is very important. All these other aspects of government are extremely important, but more important than all of that is our value system and it’s our heritage and it is our national identity.”
Regarding Trump’s critique of the Somali immigrant population’s involvement in the massive Minnesota fraud scheme, Hirsi Ali said, “I wholeheartedly agree with the president.”
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President Donald Trump addresses the audience during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)
“The president is right when he says Somalia hasn’t even made it into a nation,” she said, adding, “Every attempt at building something, making something out of Somalia has always failed because of the clan code, because of Islam, because of Marxism. We’ve had all the bad ideologies, and as Somalis we’ve run away with them.”
Further, Hirsi Ali said that the situation in Minnesota exposes a “subversive agenda in the United States is to transform it and to Islamize it using American institutions and the American vocabulary of civil rights.”
“You see that the Somalis exploit and extract the benefit system,” she said. “They tell everyone, if you expose this, investigate it, object to it, stop it, you’re racist, you’re an Islamophobe, you are a bigot.”
“If we keep on doing what we are doing, getting huge numbers of people from the third world to come and establish themselves in the United States and European countries and depend on welfare benefits, that is to take and take and never contribute, then we’re setting ourselves up not only for failure we’re committing a cultural and national and political suicide.”
To combat this, Hirsi Ali said that European nations must follow the Trump administration’s example in sealing their borders. She said that both the U.S. and Europe must also address their broad welfare systems, which she said are “just too expensive.”
In Minnesota, Hirsi Ali advocated for a hardline stance on the Somali immigrant population to assimilate into American culture.
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Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali attends a book presentation of ‘Refurbished you! Why Islam must change’ on April 20, 2015 in Berlin, Germany. (Christian Marquardt/Getty Images)
“We’ve got to force them either to assimilate, or we’ve got to give them that choice and say, ‘If you don’t want to assimilate into American society, then you will be denaturalized,’” she said.
“This isn’t just like, oh yeah, it’s another day in politics, it’s existential.”
Hirsi Ali called Trump’s Davos speech a “breakthrough” in getting European leaders to understand that defending Western civilization must be “priority number one.”
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“JD Vance put it this way: [It’s] not what are we fighting against, but what are we fighting for? What are we fighting to preserve? If you can’t answer that question, then I think you are lost, and the European leaders are lost, and I think he’s trying to help them find their way,” she said.