Protesters holding posters with Donald Trump’s portrait saying “You’re not welcome” in Davos, Switzerland
President Donald Trump said he’s going to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, “to tell the world how great America is and is doing.”
“Our economy is now booming and with all I am doing, will only get better…Our country is finally WINNING again!” the president adds in a tweet before departing the White House for the summit.
The annual gathering convening many of the world’s business and political elites in the Swiss Alps is a surprising destination for Trump, who ran for office promoting an “America First” agenda.
European leaders came to the defense of free trade and global cooperation, laying out a vision to counterbalance what many perceive as a rise in the more brash, nationalistic policies of U.S. President Donald Trump.
“We believe that isolationism won’t take us forward,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the elite gathered in the snowy Alpine town. “We believe that we must cooperate, that protectionism is not the correct answer.”
Merkel stressed there is too much “national egoism” at the moment and that the World Economic Forum’s motto of “creating a shared future in a fractured world” was “exactly right” for 2018.
As the US Air Force One was landing in Zurich, French President Emmanuel Macron was calling for acting in “a multilateral way” to better fight against extremism around the world – in an implicit reference to Trump’s foreign policy toward North Korea and Iran.
Macron said “the fight against criminal organizations shouldn’t be a justification leading to the fragmentation of our responses.”
In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he called for “acting in a multilateral way” to put pressure on countries such as North Korea and Iran “without leading to the fracturing of the region.”
He also said a multilateral political and diplomatic approach will help achieve peace, especially in the Middle East and in Africa’s Sahel region.
Meanwhile, David Cameron, the former British prime minister who called and lost the referendum on the country’s membership of the European Union, says Brexit is a “mistake, not a disaster.”
In unguarded comments to Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal that was captured in-house at the World Economic Forum, Cameron conceded that Brexit has turned out “less badly” than feared but that “it’s still going to be difficult.”
On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, Greece’s prime minister Alexis Tsipras held talks with Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev for nearly three hours It was the first meeting between leaders of the two countries in more than seven years.
Greece wants its neighbor to change or modify its name, arguing that it implies a claim to the territory and ancient heritage of its own province of Macedonia.
One global leader is skipping Davos this year.
The U.N. says Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decided not to go to the World Economic Forum’s annual global gabfest in the Swiss ski resort this year because “there was a scheduling issue.”
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters at U.N. headquarters yesterday that Guterres will be leaving today for the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
He said “often we get criticized for going to Davos, and we get criticized for not going to Davos.” MDT/AP
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