Trump’s shadow over world forum
Clashes loom at talks between global leaders
ACOMPELLING clash of cultures will unfold in the vertiginous Swiss Alps this week as Donald Trump, just over 12 months into his high-wire presidency, confronts the cheerleaders of globalisation in Davos.
Having whipped up workingclass resentment of the global elite to devastating effect en route to the White House, Trump’s “America First” vision will run headlong into the haughty ambition of the World Economic Forum (WEF) to map out “a shared future in a fractured world”.
The 2017 gathering ended on the same day as Trump was inaugurated, and many of the discussions had dwelt anxiously on what his presidency would portend.
China’s President Xi Jinping, the star turn in Davos last year, exploited such misgivings to stake out an alternative vision for the international economy with China playing a lead role in both trade and fighting climate change.
A year on, Trump will be closing the conference with a speech on Friday. He left a budget mess at home, where the US government officially shut down on Saturday after lawmakers failed to agree to a stop-gap spending deal.
The organisers, mindful of the globe-trotting but all-male caricature of “Davos Man”, are also keen to extol their efforts to promote representation by women, as sexual harassment and the gender pay gap move up the political agenda worldwide.
“Davos Women” will account for 21% of the total number of delegates this year, the highest ever proportion, if still relatively meagre. They include IMF chief Christine Lagarde, IBM head Ginni Rometty and screen star Cate Blanchett.
Cue another clash of visions given the presence of Trump, whose election campaign in 2016 was nearly upended at a late stage by a leaked recording in which he boasted of groping women.
And there will be no shortage of movers and shakers from Africa in attendance, should the president wish to explain his recent reported dismissal of countries across Africa as “shitholes”.
Trump is relishing his role as apostate-in-chief bent on demolishing the pieties held dear by the WEF, which is drawing some 70 other leaders and delegates from industry, finance and show business, plus protesters opposed to the US president.
In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, the US president said part of his motivation in becoming the first US president to attend Davos since Bill Clinton in 2000 was to be an unabashed “cheerleader for the country”.
Douglas Rediker, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, who was appointed by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama to the IMF’s executive board, said there was no way to reconcile the WEF’s globalist outlook and the Trump dogma.
“It will be a jarring visit even if the president is on his best diplomatic behaviour. And that’s a big if,” Rediker said.
Trump will be running up against internationalist foils in Davos such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, who has subverted one of the US president’s signature lines with his own motto of “Make our planet great again”.
The politicians will join the chiefs of some 1 900 companies to debate issues such as the future of work in an age of automation and artificial intelligence, tackling “the next pandemic”, and leveraging the potential of virtual currencies.
Yet there is no escaping the long shadow of Trump, as the convention-shredding president bids to make good on his Davos-baiting promises. —