In keeping with an already peculiar presidential year, Donald Trump once again accentuated his capricious persona by attending the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. This is something that US presidents seldom do. What is more, Davos is the epitome of everything the Trump campaign riled against, the pinnacle of the globalist corporate elite; Steve Bannon stated before the election that people are “tired of being dictated to by what we call the party of Davos”. The theme this year was “Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World”. This does not seem to resonate well with the rhetoric used throughout his presidency.
With this in mind, why did Trump decide to attend and what are the implications likely to be?
First, the issue of China is especially pertinent. After Xi Jinping dominated the stage last year, declaring China’s role in leading the world order and the fight against climate change, and subtly criticising the Trump agenda, perhaps Trump wanted to use the forum as an emblematic way to discredit his claims. This, coupled with the already tumultuous relations between the two powers and Trump’s anti-China rhetoric throughout his campaign, could prompt Trump to take a more active role in curtailing the state’s growing influence. The language used in his speech fits in with this, stressing that the administration is not “protectionist” but wants fair trade, which the US, he argues, has been missing out on. He asserted that “we support free trade but it needs to be fair and it needs to be reciprocal” and that “America First does not mean America alone”. This continues the narrative that the US is having to shoulder much of the financial burden in the international community and is thus being treated unfairly. It was this narrative which explained why Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
His antagonising of Beijing earlier on in the week, where he imposed large tariffs on imports of Chinese and South Korean washing machines and solar panels, fits nicely as a prelude to these statements. His robust comments could signify him taking up a much more active role in rebuffing Chinese power projection, as he promised to do during his campaign. In stressing that the US will be not as protectionist as feared, whilst denouncing China’s actions and symbolically using the forum to convey this message as a direct contrast to President Xi’s speech last year, we could now begin to see more contentious relations between the two.
The other side to Trump’s motivations for attending the conference is to distract from recent domestic events. After Fire and Fury, the recent book by Michael Wolff depicting the president as mentally unhinged, highly irrational, and essentially clueless, Trump was looking for an opportunity to refute these claims. Davos aptly fitted this, with Trump appearing unusually calm and composed. Even if the façade slipped slightly during the short interview with Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum’s executive chairman.
Trump likely also wanted to use the forum to expound the successes of his recent Tax Reform Bill, which Republicans say is a tax cut for small businesses, corporations, and individuals. He spent a significant portion of his speech emphasising how America is “open for business” and is “competitive” once again, signifying a focus on attempting to attract foreign investment into the US. In doing this, Trump is attempting to gain the support of the globalist elite present by elucidating the benefits of his ‘America First’ policy and trying to appease those he once depicted as his stark enemy.
What is all of this likely to mean? Trump is stressing the imperative of gaining foreign investment and support from corporate elites, deviating from his protectionist narrative to appease those he claimed to detest. This is likely to be a focus from now onwards and we could witness a re-orientation towards a more co-operative policy in the international arena. Yet, simultaneously and contradictorily, the chances of him taking a more proactive approach against China have also increased. His focus is now shifting towards the Asian superpower, and, emboldened by both his Tax Reform Bill and his success at the forum, he may be compelled to oppose Chinese influence more overtly than ever before. So, as usual, we should expect a strategy as dishonest to his base as it is incoherent.
