At Davos, a clash between Trump’s world and the old world

By Zolan Kanno-Youngs

As President Donald Trump threatened to upend some of the central pillars of the Western order on Wednesday, during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, some in the crowd of elites sat speechless. Others groaned. A few gasped.

Alexander Stubb, the Finnish president and a key power broker in Europe, stood up ashen-faced at the end of the speech that took aim at people like him: the leaders of the Western political and economic elite. As others made for the exits, Stubb approached Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. — seeking to learn more, Graham later said, about Trump and the United States’ position.

“Everybody in Europe is concerned,” Graham, an ally of Trump, said dismissively after speaking to Stubb. “They’re concerned when they get up and when they go to bed.”

The reaction from Stubb, who declined to comment, embodied a broader sense of shock across the conference, a talking shop for political and economic leaders. For decades, like-minded politicians, businesspeople, investors and celebrities have gathered in Davos to discuss a shared economic and political future. But for more than an hour Wednesday in one of the main speaking halls, Trump transformed the forum into the setting of a dramatic rupture between the West’s leading player and its increasingly distant allies.

After mocking European leaders for days, Trump flew thousands of miles to this snowy mountainside to launch into a verbal assault against the Western alliance, the values of its leaders and societies, and the framework of world trade.

By the end of the day Trump had rescinded some of his worst threats, saying that he had reached a tentative framework with NATO over the future of Greenland, which he wants to buy from Denmark, and withdrawn threats to impose new tariffs on allies that opposed U.S. ownership of Greenland.

While some European leaders expressed a glimmer of hope over the moves, they did little to salve the deep fear among Davos’ browbeaten guests that the United States could no longer be relied on as an ally. Earlier in the day the group had weathered insult after insult from Trump about their approach to trade, the environment and immigration.

Scattered chuckling fell to an anxious silence before turning into audible gasps as Trump used his speech to once again demand ownership of Greenland, lash out against NATO and vaguely threaten economic warfare if the European leaders did not acquiesce to his demands.

European leaders sat stunned as Trump insulted their governments and questioned their reliability as allies. Others grimaced as Trump claimed the European nations and Canada owed the United States a debt. Some even scrambled after the speech to find and question current and former U.S officials about the president's thinking and the future of the United States as a trustworthy partner.

Phil Gordon, a former national security adviser for Kamala Harris who attended the speech, said foreign officials approached him during the summit asking if Trump’s position was now “permanent.”

“Is this America?” Gordon said European officials asked him Wednesday. “And is the post World War II era definitively over — or is there any hope it comes back?”

But there was also a growing acceptance that a new world order is now emerging, right under their noses at a conference that for years was so emblematic of the old frameworks.

“They accept that under Trump this is a new world,” said Gordon. “No one can deny that and even the Europeans who have been in denial now accept.”

In his speech, Trump crystallized an idea central to that new world — a searing disregard for the post World War II world order.

Trump suggested the European allies owed him Greenland. He said that without the United States’ efforts in World War II, “you’d all be speaking German and a little Japanese perhaps,” prompting moans from the crowd. And while he said he would not use force to obtain Greenland — prompting some to breathe a sigh of relief — he did continued to frame Greenland as a debt that needed to be paid.

“You can say yes and we will be very appreciative or you can say no and we will remember,” Trump said.

Trump took particular aim at Switzerland, the country hosting the summit, stunning some Swiss officials. “They’re only good because of us," Trump said of the Swiss as he celebrated his sweeping tariffs.

“I was really astonished,” said Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter, a member of the Swiss parliament. “We are the hosts, we are the guarantee for his security from the airport to Davos, with public tax money spent, and I was convinced that we had resolved the trade issue.”

Whether the attendees liked his speech or not — and many seemed to loathe it — Trump’s appearance was the talk of the conference.

Outside the hall where Trump spoke, companies held watch parties to view his speech. Attendees tried to rearrange meetings in order not to miss it. On the promenade, people livestreamed his remarks while walking, before others later recounted the bombshells in the speech. “Are we even important?” one asked.

Yet others spoke of a disaster averted, particularly after Trump said he was not interested in using force to acquire Greenland. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said he later encountered some European officials who told him “it could’ve been worse.”

“It’s remarkable when we’ve gotten to a place where we’re saying it could’ve been worse because an American president took off the table the use of force against a NATO ally,” Coons said.

Here and there, you could find warm support for the president.

After his speech, Trump spoke at a reception for business executives, financial chiefs and cryptocurrency leaders.

“We got great reviews,” Trump told the crowd. “I can’t believe it, but we got good reviews of that speech. Usually they say he’s a horrible dictator type person, but sometimes you need a dictator.”

Minutes later, as Trump finished speaking, he was met with loud applause.

And once Trump revoked some of his biggest threats Wednesday evening, the mood across the conference edged closer to relief.

After Trump’s decision to pull back on tariffs, some attendees texted their peers a single word: “Taco!”

The term is short for Trump Always Chickens Out, a tongue-in-cheek quip adopted by some critics to describe Trump’s tendency to threaten tariffs, only to pull them back.

“They’ve lived through so many cycles of this,” Gordon said. “You live to fight another day.”