The president plans to make the global gathering in January a celebration of American history
Reports that Donald Trump has decided join the annual global elite gathering in Davos in January are a mixed blessing for the World Economic Forum (WEF). It follows a rocky few months in which its founder, Klaus Schwab, was forced out in a nasty power struggle that came close to institutional suicide. Trump’s presence should ensure a strong attendance by US companies, many of which were considering giving it a miss next time. That will ensure the WEF’s coffers are full.
On the other hand, sources close to the president have hinted that he plans not merely to be at Davos but to conquer it for Trumpism.
Trump has never liked Davos man, who political scientist Samuel Huntington famously described as a rootless global elitist with “little need for national loyalty” who viewed borders only as obstacles to be removed. In his earlier presidential participation in WEF, in-person in 2018 and 2020 and by video-link last year, Trump has been dismissive of its globalist agenda.
This time he plans to make Davos a stars-and-stripes draped celebration of the 250th birthday of the US and the triumphant return of old-fashioned American capitalism. His people, it is said, are pushing the new WEF leadership to abandon its socially responsible, environmentally friendly “stakeholder capitalism”, which Trump believes infected much of corporate America with “wokeness”.
Photograph by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
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