Next week, as politicians and business executives travel to the World Economic Forum, all eyes will be on Donald Trump, wondering how to reconcile the volatile US president with the Davos ideology of open markets and multilateralism.
Trump will visit the Swiss ski resort on Wednesday to speak at a gathering with the subject “A Spirit of Dialogue,” following a year of upending the liberal international order since his return to power.
“We’re pleased to welcome back President Trump,” Borge Brende, the forum’s chief executive, told an online press conference ahead of the Davos summit, six years after Trump’s previous in-person appearance during his first term.
He will bring along the largest US delegation ever, Brende added, setting the stage for private meetings on geopolitical flashpoints from Ukraine and Venezuela to Gaza, Greenland and Iran.
Trump told an event in Detroit, Michigan on Tuesday that he plans next week to “provide much more detail about our housing policies so that every American who wants to own a home will be able to afford one”.
His message to American voters, delivered before business and political elites, comes with US households feeling the squeeze from high costs of living as November’s midterm elections approach.
Brende noted that “the interest is to come together at the beginning of the year to try to connect the dots, decipher, and also see areas where we can collaborate”.
But with a protectionist tariff blitz and marked disdain for traditional US allies defining Trump’s second term, the chances of forging common strategies for the world’s biggest challenges appear slim.
Brende acknowledged that “our annual meeting is taking place against the most complex geopolitical backdrop since 1945”.
Economist Karen Harris at consulting firm Bain & Co. said “2025 will ultimately be seen as the year in which neoliberal globalisation ended and… the post-globalisation era began.”
It’s a shift in which “the US prioritises national security, its own security, and uses the economy as a tool to achieve some of those goals”, she said, adding that this is a “very Chinese view of the economy as well.”
China is sending Vice Premier He Lifeng to Davos, while EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will also attend.
Six of the Group of Seven leaders will also make appearances — only Japan will be absent.
Trump is bringing at least five key deputies including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Brende said, alongside Steve Witkoff, his special envoy for the Middle East and Ukraine.
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