Davos 2020: Trump lavishes praise on US economy
DAVOS The 50th World Economic Forum has kicked off in the Swiss city of Davos, with an agenda that is focused heavily on climate change, as world leaders struggle to tackle the crisis.
The fourday annual gathering of some of the world’s top political and business leaders in the Swiss Alps is seeking to meet headon the dangers to both the environment and the economy from global warming. US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly expressed scepticism about climate change, lauded the US economy in his keynote address on Tuesday morning, hours before his impeachment trial opened at the Senate in Washington, DC. Trump told business and political leaders in the mountain resort that America’s economic turnaround had been “nothing short of spectacular”. He also lashed out at environmental campaigners as Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg watched on. “We must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse,” said Trump, hours after Thunberg told the World Economic Forum that governments had done “basically nothing” to reverse climate change.
Trump’s opposition to renewable energy, his withdrawal from the 2015 Paris climate accord and the free hand extended to the fossil fuel industry puts him at odds with the entire thrust of the event. His administration’s trade spats with China and the recent deal to ease tensions between the rival giant economies weigh heavy on the minds of leaders in Davos after the International Monetary Fund slightly downgraded global growth prospects for 2020 on Monday.
Middle Eastern issues are also on Trump’s agenda, as he is set to meet Iraqi President Barham Salih, the president of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from Davos, said Trump decided to attend the summit on a day “when there is so much going on in Washington”. “There was lots of speculation that he would cancel at the last minute but he didn’t,” Bays said. (Al Jazeera)