The World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting at Davos concluded earlier this week with much fanfare. Besides several important panel discussions on issues like artificial intelligence and green energy, the highlight of this year’s meeting was the high-profile list of keynote speakers. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and He Lifeng, Vice Premier of China, attended the event, as did President Emmanuel Macron of France, Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, President of Egypt, and Javier Milei, President of Argentina. The icing on the cake was the presence of US President Donald Trump, making it one of the most high-profile events of the year.
The meeting could not escape the long shadow of Trump’s scathing attacks on the global economy, trade, and the rules-based international order. Tariffs, the US-EU trade deal, NATO, Ukraine, and Greenland dominated the discourse, highlighting the growing tension between Europe and America. While von der Leyen, Macron, and Carney minced no words in conveying their ire at their American counterpart, Trump, too, came fully prepared with his punches and ruthlessly delivered them on each one of them with glee.
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Ursula insisted that the “geopolitical shocks” that Trump is causing must serve as an opportunity for Europe “to build a new form of European independence”. Plunging relations between the US and Europe into a downward spiral “would only aid the very adversaries we are both so committed to keeping out of the strategic landscape”, she warned Trump.
Macron and Carney were more forthright in their criticism of Trump’s policies, although not naming him directly. “We do prefer respect to bullies. And we do prefer rule of law to brutality”, Macron, wearing dark glasses due to some eye infection, thundered in response to Trump’s tariff threats over Greenland and other issues. He vowed to do his best to build a “stronger Europe, much stronger and more autonomous”.
Carney talked about the breakdown of the world order and “the beginning of a brutal reality where the geopolitics of the great powers is not subject to any constraint”. He called for the middle powers to unite against the “use of economic tools as coercion” and made a potent warning that “if we are not at the table, we are on the menu”.
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Trump seemed undeterred by the attacks from his European counterparts and responded to them with all guns blazing in his hour-long, blistering speech. He forcefully defended his stance on Greenland, NATO, and the threat of enhanced tariffs. Unlike his critics, who refrained from invoking his name directly, Trump ruthlessly went after them through his trademark personal jibes. Referring to Macron’s dark glasses, he joked: “I watched him with those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened?” Going after Carney, he bluntly said, “Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements”.
Trump defended his case on Greenland by referring to World War II, when the US armed forces entered that country to defend it from the Nazis. “We were stupid to give it back to Denmark”, he quipped. He used the Davos platform to come down heavily on the NATO allies, too, whom he almost called ungrateful. “We give so much, and we get so little in return”, he bemoaned, complaining about NATO’s European allies that “… with all the money we expend, with all the blood, sweat and tears, I don’t know that they would be there for us”.
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At the end of the day, it appeared as though Davos is, far from being a meeting with an economic agenda, slowly becoming a proxy platform for strategic and geopolitical conflicts among the Western powers. Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed to be enjoying this transatlantic cacophony by throwing his weight behind Trump in the Greenland matter in the hope that the Europeans would forget Ukraine, at least for some time. He not only declared his hands-off approach on Greenland but also reminded Denmark that it had sold the Virgin Islands to the US in 1917, indirectly suggesting that they should agree to a similar deal on Greenland too. Meanwhile, China is quietly stealing the show by hosting events like the Boao Forum for Asia and the Annual Meeting of the New Champions (AMNC), which are described as Asian Davos and Summer Davos, respectively. As the Davos discourse is turning increasingly irrelevant for them, more and more countries in the Global South are opting for the Chinese-led forums that hold focused discussions on economy, trade, and related issues.
One thing that was conspicuous at Davos this year was that the meeting had very few takeaways for the rest of the world. Even the panels of CEOs, executives, and public intellectuals were heavily dominated by Western companies.
Davos looks more like a Western Geopolitical Forum summit than the World Economic Forum meeting. I hope that Borge Brende and his team are taking note.
The writer, president, India Foundation, is with the BJP
