Capping his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Trump on Friday declared America “open for business and competitive once again” in a speech that trumpeted the country’s economic strength under his administration.
“The American economy is by far the largest in the world, and we’ve just enacted the most significant tax cuts and reform in American history,” Trump said in a speech to the forum. “Now is the perfect time to bring your business, your jobs, and your investments to the United States.”
The president rattled off positive stats—low unemployment, high job creation, high business optimism—crediting his administration’s tax reform and regulatory reform as the preeminent causes.
If the president’s supporters had hoped he would seize the opportunity to take a message of unapologetic nationalism to the globalist hotbed of Davos, they were disappointed. Instead, Trump extended an olive branch to the other world leaders in attendance, focusing on cheerful matters like America’s track record for exporting prosperity rather than dire maledictions about trade policy or threats to yank foreign aid.
“America first does not mean America alone. When the United States grows, so does the world,” Trump said. “American prosperity has created countless jobs all around the globe, and the drive for excellence, creativity, and innovation in the U.S. has led to important discoveries that help people everywhere live more prosperous and far healthier lives.”
Trump’s irenic rhetoric follows the trend toward traditional Republican international policy his administration has taken in past months, as more and more of the populist-style advisers who followed him from the campaign to the White House have left the administration. The most notable of these, Steve Bannon, once smeared the Democratic party as “the party of Davos.”
In his speech, Trump channeled Bannon far less than his chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, an investment banker and Davos regular himself. It was Cohn, along with national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who coined the “America First is not America Alone” phrase in an op-ed last May.
“America First signals the restoration of American leadership and our government’s traditional role overseas—to use the diplomatic, economic, and military resources of the U.S. to enhance American security, promote American prosperity, and extend American influence around the world,” Cohn and McMaster wrote.
As he basks in his country’s economic successes, Trump has adopted this gracious style more and more.
“When I decided to come to Davos, I didn’t think in terms of elitist or globalist, I thought in terms of people that want to invest lots of money,” Trump told CNBC on Wednesday. “And they’re all coming back to the United States.”
But even as he softens on global elites, Trump continues to nurse his grudges here at home. He made that much clear during the question-and-answer following his speech, when he was dished up a softball question about what personal experiences had been most useful in preparing him for his presidency.
Trump started his answer simply. “Being a businessman has been a great experience for me… I’ve always been good at building things, and I’ve always been successful at making money.”
And then a thought seemed to strike him: “The other thing is, I’ve always seemed to get, for whatever reason, a disproportionate amount of press or media…. The numbers speak and things happen, but I’ve always really had a very good press. And it wasn’t until I became a politician that I realized how nasty, how mean, how vicious, and how fake the press can be.”
