Donald Trump opened his rambling, falsehood-filled speech at a rally last week in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, by wishing everyone “a very Merry Christmas, happy New Year, all of that stuff.” He then careened from castigating Democrats for their “affordability” hoax to reprising his condemnation of immigrants from “shithole” countries, bemoaning that the United States doesn’t attract people from Scandinavia.
Trump’s comment about “shithole” countries came after he announced “a permanent pause on Third World migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries.” An audience member corrected Trump, yelling out “shithole.” In response, Trump conceded that he had indeed used that word during a 2018 Oval Office meeting.
Recounting that meeting, Trump told the crowd that he asked: “Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden—just a few, let us have a few from Denmark. …But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”
The Trump administration’s pause on immigration from 19 countries—many African and other majority-nonwhite nations—is all too reminiscent of the nativist U.S. immigration policy of the 1920s. That’s when Congress replaced a largely open-door policy with numeric “national origins” quotas to encourage Northern and Western European immigration, sharply reduce immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe (effectively limiting Catholic and Jewish immigrants), and bar Asian immigration altogether to preserve white Protestant cultural dominance. Like 100 years ago, Trump and Republicans are scapegoating immigrants, blaming them for taking American jobs, committing crime, and threatening “traditional American values.”
Ironically, the Scandinavian countries on Trump’s list of preferred nations—Denmark, Norway and Sweden—are all social democracies, the kind of countries democratic socialists Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani say provide a model for the United States to emulate. Like the United States, they have capitalist economies, but they also have robust social safety net programs, strong unions, and much narrower income and wealth gaps.
Why aren’t residents of those countries clamoring to move here?
Because they have it a lot better than we do.
They’re healthier
The three Scandinavian countries’ universal health care systems are consistently ranked among the best in the world. In 2023, the Prosperity Institute’s Legatum Prosperity Index, which graded 167 countries on health outcomes, economic performance, education quality, and nine other categories, rated Norway, Sweden and Denmark’s health care systems 7th, 9th and 16th respectively.
The U.S. health care system came in 69th, and that designation came well before the Trump administration bulldozed the Department of Health and Human Services and slashed funding for medical research.
The United States spends more on health care per capita than any other industrialized democracy. In 2024, the United States spent $14,885 per capita, 110 percent more than Denmark ($7,071), 89 percent more than Sweden ($7,871), and 58 percent more than Norway ($9,393). Despite that expenditure, U.S. health outcomes often lag behind those of Scandinavia. Babies there, for example, have a much better chance of staying alive and living longer than American newborns. According to 2024 CIA estimates, Norway’s infant mortality rate is 1.8 deaths per 1,000 live births, Sweden’s is 2.3 deaths, and Denmark’s is 3.0 deaths. At 5.1 deaths per 1,000 live births, U.S. infant mortality is higher than in any comparable high-income country.
As for longevity, Norway boasts a combined male and female life expectancy of 83.61 years, putting it in 12th place, according to 2025 United Nations estimates. Swedes, in 14th place, have a life expectancy of 83.58 years, while Danes—at 82.25 years—place 30th. The United States ranks 48th—just after Albania—with a combined life expectancy of 79.61 years.
They eat better
Americans are fatter than their Scandinavian counterparts. Denmark’s obesity rate is only 13.55 percent. Sweden’s is 15.6 percent and Norway’s is 19.53 percent. By contrast, nearly 43 percent of American adults are obese (including Donald Trump, who apparently fudged his height in 2016 to avoid being classified that way). It’s a serious problem for American children, too. More than 20 percent of U.S. children are obese, while the obesity rate for kids in Denmark is only 5.54 percent, Norway 6.15 percent, and Sweden 10 percent.
Scandinavian and U.S. statistics on food and farming tell a similar disparate story. Sweden ranked first overall in the 2022 Food Sustainability Index, which graded 78 countries in three categories: nutrition policies, food loss and waste, and sustainable agriculture. Norway was not included in the survey, but Denmark ranked 6th. The United States ranked 30th overall, mainly because of policies that cultivate bad eating habits and destructive industrial farming practices.
Sweden and Denmark’s best scores were for their nutrition policies, ranking 2nd and 3rd, respectively, on the strength of their programs that promote healthy diets. The United States ranked 47th, largely because Americans consume a lot of meat, saturated fat and sugar.
They go to college for free
Tuition for a bachelor’s or master’s degree at Danish, Norwegian and Swedish public universities is free for citizens of the European Economic Area (European Union countries, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and Switzerland. Doctorate programs in Sweden are free for all international students, regardless of their country of origin.
While the United States is home to the most prestigious colleges and universities in the world, they also are among the most expensive. The average cost of tuition and fees for the 2025–2026 school year was $44,961 at private colleges, $25,415 for out-of-state residents attending public universities, and $11,371 for state residents at public colleges, according to U.S. News & World Report data. The University of Southern California, whose tuition and required fees for the 2025-2026 school year cost $75,162, is the most expensive school in the country. Brown University was a close second, with tuition and fees totaling $74,550.
The high cost of a college diploma saddles American grads with debt that can dog them for much of their adult life. At the end of 2024, there were nearly 43 million borrowers with $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
They receive better benefits
U.S. workers earn an average of $78,744 annually after taxes, the highest worldwide after their counterparts in Switzerland and Luxembourg. At $69,264 on average a year, Norwegians are 5th highest paid, followed by Danish workers, who average $68,988 a year. Swedish workers, who average $49,008, are in 16th place.
Although average U.S. wage earners make more than Scandinavian workers, their benefits lag far behind. In fact, a 2021 report by Zenefits, a human resources firm, concluded that U.S. workers’ benefits are worse than those of all other developed countries. Among the best countries for benefits, according to the report, were Denmark and Sweden.
Workers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden not only get guaranteed health care coverage, but also a minimum of five weeks of paid leave a year plus national holidays (10 to 14 in Denmark, 10 in Norway, and 13 in Sweden).
Danish employees also get unlimited paid sick leave. Mothers there get 14 weeks of partially paid maternity leave and fathers get 2 weeks. Norwegian workers get as many as 52 weeks of paid sick leave and 49 weeks (at 100 percent pay) or 59 weeks (at 80 percent pay) of parental leave. Employees in Sweden get as many as 18 weeks of partially paid sick leave and as many as 96 weeks of partially paid parental leave, which can be shared equally by a child’s parents.
Meanwhile, the United States is the only industrialized democracy that doesn’t guarantee workers paid vacation time. It’s also the only one that doesn’t offer universal healthcare for its citizens. U.S. companies with more than 50 employees are required to offer health care benefits or pay a penalty, and most provide only two weeks paid vacation along with 10 federal holidays. Companies with 50 or more employees also are required to grant up to 12 weeks of unpaid maternity (or adoption) leave or family sick leave.
They’re happier
In March, the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre released its 13th annual World Happiness Report, which ranks 140 countries on how their residents evaluate their lives on a scale of zero to 10. The three Scandinavian countries Trump named were among the top 10 happiest countries. Denmark was No. 2, just behind Finland, the happiest country for the eighth year in a row largely because of its strong welfare system. Sweden was the 4th happiest country and Norway came in 7th. Meanwhile, The United States came in 24th due at least in part to a growing mistrust in social and political institutions.
Badmouthing socialism
The Republican Party’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which extended tax cuts for the uber rich and slashed food assistance and health care programs, was just the latest round of the party’s 90-year campaign to eliminate government programs based on a misguided belief that the private sector can take care of just about everything besides the military.
In the 1930s, the GOP tried to kill Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in its crib, calling it “socialism” and “communism.” Thirty years later, it opposed Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs, notably Medicare, Medicaid and federal education funding. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon cut funds for anti-poverty programs. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan rolled back welfare, public housing and food assistance programs, declaring that government is the problem, not the solution. George W. Bush wanted to privatize Social Security in the early 2000s.
At the same time, the GOP and right-wing media have deliberately tried to confuse—and scare—the public about just what Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani mean when they talk about democratic socialism, disingenuously equating it with authoritarianism.
In his 2020 State of the Union address, Trump attacked socialism, claiming it “destroys nations.” He specifically denounced a “Medicare for All” proposal endorsed by Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and 130 other members of Congress at the time, calling it a “socialist takeover of our healthcare system.”
That same year, Fox News streamed a six-part series, “The Unauthorized History of Socialism,” that cited Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao Zedong’s China as prime examples of socialism and claimed that Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez support that kind of system in the United States.
More recently, Republican Rick Scott of Florida introduced a resolution in the Senate condemning socialism as a failed ideology, lumping together Cambodia, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Venezuela. “As far-left politicians like Zohran Mamdani in New York openly embrace socialist ideologies,” Scott’s September 4th press release stated, “Senator Scott’s resolution serves as a blunt warning that socialism is not just misguided policy, it is a proven path to tyranny, starvation and death, as has been proven time and time again, and has no place in America.”
Socialism is a proven path to tyranny, starvation and death? Tell that to the 22 million people who live in the social democracies of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They’re not emigrating to the United States for an obvious reason: Their countries do a better job of ensuring their citizens live long, prosperous and, dare I say, happy lives.
Elliott Negin, Money Trail’s executive editor, was previously the managing editor of American Journalism Review, the editor of Public Citizen and Nuclear Times magazines, a news editor at NPR, and a regular contributor at HuffPost.
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Wonderful piece!
Terrific post, Elliott. Thanks!