Why ‘America First’ is a hard sell in Davos
Despite Trump’s nativist agenda and protectionist steps, there is a feeling that global problems are also America’s
There is no bigger story at the World Economic Forum than the first appearance of an American leader since 2000. United States President Donald Trump talks about the glories of his “America First” domestic and foreign policy, touting the supposed roaring success of the US economy under his watch and reaffirming the nativist tenets that underline his worldview. He is extending a hand to a wary audience, pitching America as open for business and investment.
“This is about an America First agenda. But America First does mean working with the rest of the world,” said US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at a press conference. Mnuchin’s counterpart at the Commerce Department, Wilbur Ross, was more hawkish, gesturing to China’s supposedly unfair trade practices. “Trade wars are fought every single day,” Ross said when asked about the Trump administration’s apparent protectionism.
But at Davos, it’s not just the US that’s manning the barricades. Both French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel launched thinly veiled attacks on Trump’s agenda and used their platforms to hail the potential emergence of a more independent and more integrated Europe. “We need to take more responsibility; we need to take our destiny into our own hands,” Merkel said, issuing what’s now become a familiar refrain in the age of Trump. She also said protectionism was not the answer and lamented the poison of rightwing populism, which, among other things, threatens her own hold on power as Germany struggles to form a new government.
“We think that shutting ourselves off, isolating ourselves, will not lead us into a good future,” Merkel said, echoing what a number of other world leaders had already voiced in Davos. Like them, she argued that collaboration, cooperation and multilateral solutions — instead of, say, the unilateral bluster of Trump — are what’s needed.
That was a call explicitly made by Macron, as well. His remarks would be familiar to anyone who has listened to his earlier major speeches, bullish on France’s role at the core of the European Union and rife with calls for innovation and huge investments in education and research to revitalise the French economy. He also used the occasion to mock at Trump’s climate denial.
“With this snow, it’s hard to believe in global warming,” Macron joked, referring to the walls of ice and slush built up around the forum’s venues. “Obviously and thankfully, you didn’t invite anyone sceptical about global warming this year.”
Deportations under Obama
Jokes aside, the attendees at Davos are genuinely curious about Trump. There’s nothing unusual about a nation prioritising its own interests — indeed, that’s how every nation-state functions. The main difference with Trump, suggested Luis Almagro, the secretary-general of the Organisation of American States, is that of rhetoric, not necessarily policy. He pointed out that former US president Barack Obama employed none of the racially charged anti-immigration tactics of the Trump administration, yet huge numbers of deportations still took place under Obama’s watch.
Almagro was speaking at a panel cohosted by Washington Post and moderated by Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron. The real question is, do “America First” policies really put America First? said Keyu Jin, a professor at the London School of Economics, speaking at the same event. We blame a lot on globalisation and trade, where in fact job losses are much more associated with technology.
Senator Bob Corker, who clashed with Trump a few times over the course of 2017, urged the president to offer an explanation of “America First” in a way that doesn’t make it look that it’s about America being alone. Despite the entreaties of administration officials, though, “America alone” is the conclusion drawn by many analysts of Trump’s foreign policy. Trump, through his tweeted attacks on allies and oft-muddled messaging, has burnt some goodwill that built up over many years overseas, argued Corker, “and it’s going to take some time rebuild that”.
Others are simply looking for a real plan. Gassan Hasbani, the Deputy Prime Minister of Lebanon, applauded Trump’s willingness to engage the Middle East. But he failed to see how Trump’s decision to recognise occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — without extracting any concessions on behalf of the Palestinians — played into an “America First” narrative. And as Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is in retreat he said, the post-Daesh period needs a clear strategy — a substantive commitment to building peace in the region.
Ultimately, despite the scepticism, Trump may have found in Davos a global community that would prefer to be his friend. It’s great that the American president came here and faced people who might have differed with his views, said Erna Solberg, the Prime Minister of Norway. “I don’t think there’s a place to hide in this world.” Global problems are also American problems.
y the time this profile has found a place on this page and into your hands, either in traditional print or in an electronic form, the forum in Davos will be over for another year. Every year, in this third week of January, the world’s elite in the fields of business, politics, financing are joined by the occasional celebrity who has risen to at least being heard in his or her own words and not just those recited as lines in a screen project, and gather in the Swiss mountain resort town of Davos. The first conclave took place in 1971 under the name of ‘European Management Forum’. The name was changed to World Economic Forum in 1987.
This year, some 60 heads of state — including United States President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May, French President Emmanuel Macron and Chinese President Xi Jingping — were there. Add in Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, and it shows you the Alisters on board. Not that Christine Lagarde, the President of the International Money Fund, and some 400 other heads of state, institutions and corporations aren’t A-listers in their own rights, but the people and nations that gathered in Davos represent more than 70 per cent of the wealth and influence on this blue planet that we all share on its trips around the sun.
So what’s discussed at the 400 seminars, debates and panels at Davos is pretty important in how you, me, and everyone else will be affected in the coming year.
It must take a pretty hefty little black book of contacts to be able to convince the world’s movers and shakers that they need to come to a small, overpriced and overcrowded ski resort in Switzerland in the middle of cold and dark winter days and nights for a good old-fashioned chinwag. And that’s where Professor Klaus Schwab comes in. His wife Hilde helps too — and together they make up the perfect power couple that make the World Economic Forum a success each year.
There’s a story told that Professor Klaus was sitting behind his desk in his office one day back in the 1970s and called at his secretary to get him Giscard d’Estaing on the line. Oliver Giscard d’Estaing was the man at the head of Insead Business School. Last year, it was rated the top in the world for an MBA by the Financial Times. Back in the 1970s, it was laying the groundwork for its presentday iconic status. Professor Schwab waits a few minutes before the call is connected, and he’s then put through to Valery Giscard d’Estaing instead. Oops, wrong number. Who else in the world but Professor Schwab is in a position to be able to hang up on the then President of France, who took the call in the Elysee Palace in Paris? And that was more than 40 years ago.
Honorary degrees
The above anecdote says as much for Schwab as do his impressive list of honorary degrees that make up the world’s top universities and seats of learning. Mind you, his own academic achievements aren’t all that shabby either: 1957 Graduated from the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Ravensburg, Germany; 1962 Dipl. Ing., Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland; 1963 Lic.es.sc.econ. et soc. (summa cum laude) University of Fribourg, Switzerland; 1966 Doctorate in Engineering (Dr Sc Tech), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland; 1967 Doctorate in Economics (Dr rer pol), Uni- versity of Fribourg, Switzerland; 1967 Master of Public Administration, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, US.
My head hurts just thinking about all of that, never mind the student loans or his poor parents’ worry that their little Klaus might not get a job at the end of all his studies. But he did, and his official CV describes his early career as: “19581962 Experience on the shop floor of several companies; 1963-1966 Assistant to the DirectorGeneral of the German Machine-building Association (VDMA), Frankfurt; 1967-1970 Member, Managing Board, Sulzer Escher Wyss AG, Zurich, a manufacturing company with activities in several countries and over 10,000 employees.”
Personally speaking, I think that’s pretty impressive, up to 1970, but it’s after that that his profile really took off — and has been stratospheric ever since.
Achieving long-term growth
This from his official biography, or in words approved by him, no doubt: “He founded the Forum in 1971, the same year in which he published Moderne Unternehmensfuhrung im Maschinenbau (Modern Enterprise Management in Mechanical Engineering). In that book, he argued that the management of a modern enterprise must serve not only shareholders, but all stakeholders ,to achieve long-term growth and prosperity. Schwab has championed the multi-stakeholder concept since the Forum’s inception, and it has become the world’s foremost platform for public and private cooperation. Under his leadership, the Forum has been a driver for reconciliation efforts in different parts of the world, acting as a catalyst of numerous collaborations and international initiatives.”
And just when you think he’d be happy with that level of sway, along comes this gem: “Schwab has encouraged the establishment of communities providing global expertise and knowledge for problem-solving. Among them is the Network of Global Future Councils, the world’s foremost interdisciplinary knowledge network dedicated to promoting innovative thinking on the future.”
Aha! That’s what it’s all about. Some days I just feel like an under-achiever. I knew I should have stuck with the books back in university. Ah well ... Onwards and upwards.
Davos is pretty nice in summer too, I hear.
www.gulfnews.com/opinions