DAVOS: US President Donald Trump told the World Economic Forum in Davos that the “American dream is back, bigger, better and stronger than before” in an address that celebrated his economic record after three years in the White House.
Trump’s 30-minute speech to a packed Congress Hall at the opening plenary session mainly consisted of statistics aimed at showing his success in creating jobs, raising earnings and stimulating growth. “This has been a blue-collar boom. We are determined to create the highest standard of living that anyone can imagine,” he said.
“It is an economic boom the like of which the world has never experienced before,” he added.
The President made no mention of the reported $3 million “bounty” that had been offered by an Iranian legislator to anybody who killed him. Ahmed Hamzeh, from the province that was also home to Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general killed in a US air strike this month, made the threat in the Iranian Parliament, according to local media.
Trump also proclaimed his triumph in the trade war with China, after the recent “phase one” deal to reduce some tariffs and normalize some aspects of US-China commerce. “We have been addressing chronic problems that have been around for decades. China’s predator practices have been getting worse and worse under previous administrations,” he said.
In the wake of the trade deal, he said that US-China relations had “never been better,” adding: “President Xi is for China, and I am for the USA, but apart from that we love each other.”
Apart from Chinese relations, and some remarks about the trade deals he had concluded with Japan and South Korea, the speech — in the week that impeachment proceedings begin in Washington — focused almost exclusively on American domestic economic policy. He said that American markets had risen by 50 per cent under his presidency, despite the policies of the Federal Reserve, which has kept interest rates low.
Trump highlighted the fact that some economies had negative interest rates, drawing a rare laugh from the delegates when he said: “That means that they pay you to borrow money. That’s something I could get used to very quickly.”
The Middle East received only a passing mention, in reference to the G20 summit of global leaders in Riyadh later this year, but energy policy figured high up the president’s comments.
He said that the US was “by far” the biggest energy producer in the world, with other energy exporters “not even close,” and he said that energy policy under his administration had been “so successful we no longer have to import energy from hostile nations.”
In a nod to climate change — the other great content of Davos 2020 — Trump celebrated his environmental policy which he said had produced the “cleanest air and water,” and committed the US to joining the WEF campaign to plant 1 trillion trees over the next decade to combat emissions of carbon dioxide.
The Trump address was introduced by Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the WEF, who praised the US president for bringing a note of optimism to the annual meeting, which has been more downbeat on global issues than for many years. He was preceded by a Swiss male choir singing an Alpine song.
Trump urged other countries to adopt the “American model” to unify their countries and develop “pro-worker, pro-citizen and pro-family” policies.
“Only when governments put their own citizens first will people become invested in their own futures,” he said.
Trump closed his speech by urging delegates to emulate the efforts of the Renaissance builders of the Duomo in Florence and the workers repairing Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.
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