Davos people thought they were more important than democracy. Trump has proved them wrong

Trump Dav
Trump Dav

If your head’s stopped spinning from all the winning, you might take a look at Donald Trump’s Davos speech. It’s a glimpse into the next four years: Trump insulting and threatening foreigners while they nod furiously cos he has the nukes now. And yet, as we discovered, he doesn’t actually like nukes ...

Davos is a powerful and impactful meeting of 3,000 of the world’s most awful people. Sessions before Trump’s included “why Saudi Arabia is fabulous” – or words to that effect, online audience of 30 – and Nick Clegg discussing AI (so that’s where Clegg got to, if you were remotely interested).

This year’s theme is “You Will Obey”. The opening ceremony featured a man dressed as the Test Card hitting himself with a stick – I’m making none of this up – while he screeched into the microphone, a song that probably sounded better in the original inuit. People pay around £20,000 to attend this nonsense. I’d rather be held hostage by Hamas (at least you get a gift bag).

The WEF’s supreme leader Klaus Schwab - Blofeld minus the cat - introduced the new president live via videolink, his absence felt as a comment on the declining influence of the globalist elite. “Vot a great honour and pleasure to velcome you back,” said Klaus. Yes, it must be oozed Trump – declaring that while the Davosites were freezing their yurts off, he was warming America (and the Earth!) up to a new “golden age”.

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Davos exists to unite the world; he rhetorically unpicked it. Auf wiedersehen, Paris climate accord; au-revoir, electric cars. America will disappear behind a tariff wall. Bring your business here, he said, and you’ll get low taxes and regulation; insist on operating elsewhere, and you’ll pay to play. Trump insisted interest rates and oil prices go down. He asked Nato countries to spend 5 per cent on defence. He looked especially happy to remind us that he’ll be in charge when America hosts the 2028 Olympics and for the country’s 250th anniversary in 2026 – the latter said as if he’d personally negotiated the date with George III.

There was some pleasure to hear Trump tear into EU regulations, but the event also reminded us that he’s far from a working-class outsider. The panellists asking questions largely seemed to be friends; one, the head of Blackstone, is a neighbour.

Trump was asked a softball question by Patrick Pouyanne, boss of Total, whose company just announced a delay to its work on a liquid natural gas plant in Mozambique. This follows unrest in the country and disturbing reports by Politico. The scandal makes a mockery of the idea that globalisation is an economic win-win that knits the world together and increases political stability.

Free market capitalism can descend into a war of all against all, and Trump is merely open about it: as the new CEO of America, he intends to rewrite the rules to his advantage, squeeze out the competition and deliver rich dividends for the voters. But on one point he retains a humanity that I don’t see in many liberal statesmen: he hates war. Viscerally loathes it. We need, he argued, to move towards nuclear disarmament. Of Ukraine, he said, “They’re laying dead all over the flat fields” – an image that is powerful because it’s so clumsy, capturing the pitiless absurdity of conflict. He has already brought a ceasefire to Gaza.

“Ve look forward to seeing you next year,” the panellists kept saying, like unloved relatives announcing your presence at a dinner before you knew it was even happening. In their minds, the Davos consensus is more important and irresistible than democracy itself. Trump proves them wrong.