The White House announced Jan. 20 that President Donald Trump will meet his Iraqi counterpart, Barham Salih, this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Trump is also set to meet separately with Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani.

Why it matters:  Baghdad’s threat to expel US troops in the wake of the strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani and the Trump administration’s vow to hit Iraq with sanctions could become a major point of contention in the meeting. Some Republican lawmakers have also floated moving US troops to Iraqi Kurdistan if Baghdad moves forward with its threats to remove US forces — a possibility Trump himself could raise when he meets with Barzani.

Approximately 5,000 US troops remain in Iraq to train Iraqi security forces and cooperate in battling what remains of the Islamic State (IS). US forces returned to Iraq in 2014 at the request of the Iraqi government, when IS had overrun large swaths of Iraqi territory, capturing Mosul and threatening the Kurdistan Region.

Although the State Department told Al-Monitor last week that Iraq sanctions are still on the table “if we deem them necessary,” Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Joey Hood was less willing to address the specific threats the United States has made.