Donald Trump’s skills as a political chameleon may have been underestimated. In tone, his speech to the Davos elite was quite unlike his set pieces for domestic audiences. It was thoughtful, balanced and delivered as if to a boardroom. As such it was the most emollient and effective international address of his presidency so far.
As expected, Mr Trump offered the world’s captains of industry three propositions: that “America first” does not mean America alone; that he is not opposed to free trade as long as it is fair; and that after the tax cuts recently approved by Congress, America is once again open for business.
No one has ever seriously suggested that America is not open for business, but this president’s audiences are learning not to parse his remarks too pedantically. Pared down to their essentials and read carefully from a teleprompter, these ones contained little that a FTSE 100 chief executive could object to and much that he or she could usefully chew over.
He came, he said, to “affirm America’s friendship and partnership in building a better world”. From most leaders those words would have been considered padding. From Mr Trump they were an essential antidote to the starkly isolationist message of his inauguration speech a year ago. His presence among so many globalists has been a clear signal that he understands America gains much from globalism. He chose to put it differently — “when the United States grows, so does the world” — but the message was the same.
On trade, the president did not row back from his threats to punish China for bending international rules. Far from it. He took aim at intellectual property theft, central planning and unfair state subsidies, all of which are Beijing’s specialities and all of which distort free trade. Yet neither did he turn his back on the principle of free trade as long as it is on a level playing field. With that in mind he said that the US was ready to sit down with members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership from which it has withdrawn, and he did not rule out negotiating with them “as a group”.
Advertisement
Coming from a president whose stock-in-trade has been to rubbish every multilateral trade deal made by his predecessors, these words may yet be seen as a significant shift away from ideology and towards realism. If so, the world will benefit.
Above all, Mr Trump came to the Alps to trumpet the deregulation and reform he has pushed through at home, not just as an example to other governments, but as an inducement to invest in America. This was, indeed, a speech he could not have made without the tax cuts passed last month, whose immediate effects have been remarkable. Keen to be seen to be sharing the fruits of the headline cut in corporation tax from 35 to 21 per cent, blue-chip American employers have been competing to outdo each other in workers’ bonuses.
More significant in the long term, Apple, the world’s biggest company, has promised to repatriate roughly $250 billion in cash held abroad, and to invest $350 billion in plant and jobs in the US. Mr Trump’s purpose was to invite the rest of the business world to follow suit. Implicit in the invitation was an acceptance that investment does not have to be nationalist. A worker re- entering employment with a good job in a new manufacturing plant in Ohio is unlikely to care much if her employer is BMW or General Motors.
This was a truth that Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was anxious to impress on Mr Trump last year. He brought to Davos a truth of his own: with power comes “a duty of loyalty to the people, workers, customers who made you who you are”. Wise words. Global elites have spent much of the past two years scorning Mr Trump as a candidate and condescending to him as a president, yet they must learn to live with him and learn from him. He seems ready to reciprocate.