(Paris) Barely inducted into the White House, American President Donald Trump will join by videoconference next week’s meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he is expected to monopolize a large part of the conversations.
The meeting, which brings together the world’s economic and political elites each year in the Swiss ski resort of Graubünden, starts on the same day as the American inauguration, Monday January 20.
During his first term, Donald Trump had already attended it, in person. This year it will take place by videoconference, on the afternoon of Thursday January 23, announced the head of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Borge Brende during a presentation of the 2025 edition, promising “a very special moment” to learn more about the priorities of the new American administration.
According to Borge Brende, Donald Trump’s team wants to have “a large presence” at the end of the meeting, which lasts until January 24.
Regarding one of the president-elect’s most important supporters, billionaire Elon Musk, “we don’t know” if he will come this year, he nevertheless indicated, assuring that he was “of course welcome with Donald Trump when he will, we hope, come in person to our next annual meeting.”
The 47e President of the world’s leading power will monopolize minds at the Davos forum, which promotes multilateralism and free trade. Values that seem far removed from the isolationist slogan “America first” and the radical increases in customs duties on products entering the United States promised by Donald Trump.
These taxes could cause an additional cost of $640 billion to the American economy, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) published Monday, and cause global inflation to soar.
“Man of the Year”
To be at the heart of the discussions, “he does not need to be in Davos,” the former director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Pascal Lamy, told AFP. “He is the man of the year at the WEF, and people will try to figure it out among themselves, if they can.”
For Josh Lipsky, director of the geoeconomics department of the American think tank Atlantic Council, “the most important event for the global economy will undoubtedly take place in Washington” and not in Davos next week. “Not the inauguration itself, but the decrees that we expect from day one, including the potential announcement of customs duties,” he told AFP.
More than 60 heads of state and government are expected during the 2025 edition of the Davos forum, according to the organizers, and more than 900 business leaders.
Among this year’s distinguished guests, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will deliver a speech on Tuesday. Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, the Presidents of Iraq and Argentina, the Syrian, Saudi and Qatari Foreign Ministers, as well as the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will also be among the political leaders present, all like the Iranian vice-president, Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa are also expected at a time when Qatar said on Tuesday it hoped for a ceasefire “very soon”, after 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas which left tens of thousands of deaths.
“We have the opportunity and the responsibility to find areas where it is possible to improve the state of the world. And we have the right leaders to do it,” Borge Brende said on Tuesday.
