Donald Trump virtually takes the stage in Davos

After three days of talking only about him, or almost, the elites gathered in Davos will finally be able to question Donald Trump directly on Thursday.

“Trump is a provocateur. He loves being a provocateur, and a lot of people in Davos are bored with their lives. It’s not boring. So you know, it’s quite exciting,” Graham Allison, professor at the American Harvard University and regular at the World Economic Forum meeting in Switzerland, told AFP.

From official round tables to evenings, including minibuses shuttling to neighboring villages, the newly inaugurated 47th President of the United States has been taking part in many conversations since Monday.

He will finally make an intervention by videoconference at 5 p.m.

The sequence is scheduled to last 45 minutes, and includes a question-and-answer session with big bosses whose list was still being finalized Wednesday evening.

Trump, himself a businessman who made his fortune in real estate, runs America like it’s a business and wants “the best benefit for the United States in any way he can get there.” happen,” explains Julie Teigland, partner of the EY firm, to AFP.

“He knows he needs business partners to do this. So I expect him to send messages along those lines.”

Threats of customs surcharges against Mexico, Canada, the European Union or China, withdrawal from the World Health Organization or the Paris climate agreement, stated desire to “take back” the Panama Canal. .. Donald Trump has given a taste of his intentions since his inauguration on Monday, which coincided with the opening of the annual meeting in the upscale resort in the Swiss Alps.

And the reactions were quick among the senior political leaders present in large numbers in Davos this week.

“Protectionism leads nowhere, and there are no winners in trade wars,” asserted Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang, while Panamanian President José Raul Mulino recalled that the canal does not had not been “a gift” from the United States.

The ultraliberal Argentine President Javier Milei, for his part, welcomed the “golden age” that Trump promises for the United States, “a light for the whole world”, during an event organized by Bloomberg on the sidelines of the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

This self-proclaimed ally of the American president must also make a speech in Davos, but in the flesh, a few hours before him on Thursday.