For three days, Donald Trump dominated Davos from a distance.
The fourth, he did it in person, albeit virtually, with a speech that took his threats of economic conflict with Europe directly to its political leaders.
Stripped from the White House to the World Economic Forum, he delivered a message of complete confidence in American power and a direct challenge to those who don’t play.
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Initially, he stuck with the inauguration script and his domestic agenda, but, through a question from his neighbor and former Mar-a-Lago advisor, Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder of the Blackstone Group, he let Rip .
Mr. Schwarzman identified a theme this week, frustration with EU regulations among businesses, and the president took full advantage of it.
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He has criticized taxes on U.S. businesses and what he sees as a trade imbalance. “They don’t take our food, they don’t take our cars, but they send us cars by the million.”
The EU’s demands for $15 billion in taxes from Apple, as well as investigations into Google and Facebook, have also been criticized. “These companies, like them or not, they are American companies.
“No one is happy with it and we are going to do something about it. I try to be constructive, I love Europe, but they treat the United States very unfairly. »
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His counter-offer listens to businesses; Corporate tax of just 15% for companies that move their manufacturing to the United States and tariffs for those that don’t, a stance that would inevitably lead to retaliation.
In the audience, the heads of the European Central Bank, the World Trade Association, the International Money Fund and Nudry Cabinet Ministers and Central Bankers, shifted in their seats.
As if to underline what Europe would face, Mr Trump cited a $600 billion investment promised by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and suggested “he’s turning it up to a trillion” .
After parking metaphorical tanks on the chancellery lawns, he offered some hope, but no details, of how he might approach the real ones rolling across Ukraine.
Referring to “millions of corpses lying on the flat fields,” he said efforts to ensure peace “should be underway.” Asked when that might happen, he said the answer lay with Russia. “Ukraine is ready.”
After starting the week guessing at what Trump 2.0 might mean, Davos delegates, that unique blend of money, power, civil society and celebrity, are leaving the Alps without the illusion of disruption to come.