The president of the United States, Donald Trump, presented his plans to the participants of the Davos Forum (Switzerland) this Thursday, expressing his dissatisfaction with the treatment that the EU accords to his country in economic matters and ensuring that, three percentage points more than the current goal.
“I want to be constructive because I love Europe. But from the point of view of the United States, the EU treats us very, very unfairly, very badly,” Trump said in his speech by videoconference from Washington. He then outlined his reasons for his complaint, substantially anchored in a commercial relationship that he considers unfairly unbalanced, but also adding criticism of the fines for violations of the free competition regime against American companies, which he described as a form of hidden taxation. “Thus, we have big complaints with the EU,” he concluded.
The unease on the economic front is added to what Trump expresses about the military spending of many NATO partners – largely European – which in his opinion is insufficient. He formalized with strong language his demand to go to much more. “I will ask all NATO nations to increase defense spending to 5%,” pointing out that the limited investment of others constitutes another way of taking advantage of the United States. The search for relations in his opinion “just” ―especially with the prism of and military contributions – is the essential axis of the conception of international relations.
In her speech – a speech followed by an exchange of questions and answers with four prominent business leaders, among them, Ana Botín, president of Banco Santander – she stated that she wishes to be able to meet “soon with the president [Vladímir] Putin” to push for a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, and that he mentioned the matter in his recent telephone conversation with the president of China, Xi Jinping. “I hope China can help us stop the war between Russia and Ukraine. They have a lot of power over that situation. And we will work with them. And I have mentioned this matter in Asked if in a year’s time, in the next edition of the forum, there would be peace in Ukraine, he responded: “You have to ask Russia.” During the election campaign he maintained that he would resolve the matter within 24 hours.
Domestically, Trump maintained that he is carrying out “a common sense revolution.” He emphasized his determination to carry out the “largest deregulation campaign in history” and also “the largest tax reduction in history.”
The cultural battle also surfaced in his speech, with a passage dedicated to his desire to abolish all the “absurd” measures to favor what he called a form of discrimination. He stated that under his command, the United States will once again be a country governed by merit. All in all, the allusions to the cultural battle were minimal with respect to the single-thematic intervention of the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, this Thursday morning.
The entire intervention allowed Trump’s transactional conception of relationships to transpire. The president mentioned reports of an alleged Saudi project to invest some $600 billion. “I’ll call the prince, who’s a fantastic guy, and tell him to round it up to a billion. I think they will because we have been very good to them.” Prince Mohammed bin Salmán was considered by the Joe Biden Administration to be responsible for the dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Türkiye. He was not the only authoritarian leader praised by Trump, who also said he “very much likes” Xi Jinping.
“I will also ask them to help lower the price of crude oil,” Trump said, referring to the Saudis, who maintained that lowering the price of oil – which would limit Russia’s income – has the potential to end the war in Ukraine.
After the initial speech, which lasted about 15 minutes, Trump received questions from four business leaders – in addition to Botín, Stephen Schwarzman, president of Blackstone; Brian Moynihan, president of Bank of America, and Patrick Pouyanné, of Total Energies. Both Botín and Schwarzman showed their appreciation for the deregulation agenda and asked about it. Trump did not go into further detail. Botín took advantage of the circumstance to briefly portray his bank to Trump, who responded that he knew him and praised his “fantastic work.” Less fluid was the exchange with Moyhinan, to whom the president reproached that American banks do not adequately grant credit to conservatives.
