Private jet elite in Davos PANIC over Trump presidency: Business leaders say second term will pose serious problems and rush to implement plans

Donald Trump is thousands of miles away from the snowy meeting of global elites in Davos, Switzerland, but he is the subject of the World Economic Forum taking place there.

On the same night he won the Iowa caucus, the world’s top business and economic leaders gathered for the summit’s opening event, where they expressed concern that a second Trump term would lead to the return of American isolationism and a threat to trade and climate policy. around the world.

“You know, we’ve been there before, we survived, so we’ll see what it means,” Vice Chairman Philipp Hildebrand said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. ‘Certainly from a European perspective, from a kind of globalist, Atlanticist perspective, it is of course a major concern.’

Trump last visited Davos in 2020, when he made a dramatic entrance by landing with a squadron of helicopters.

But he was a popular topic of conversation for this year’s attendees.

Many at the gathering of leaders from business, governments, civil society, faith groups, academia and the arts wondered whether the 2024 presidential election in the United States would be a repeat of the 2020 election and what the outcome would be mean for the rest of the world. the world.

“Every question I got as I walked up and down the (Davos) Promenade today was ‘is he coming back?'” Tim Adams, president of the Institute of International Finance, told CNBC.

“So I think there’s a lot of interest in that question and what does that mean, and who would be in the key positions,” he added.

As president, Trump championed a series of tax cuts seen as a benefit to the wealthy and instituted international trade policies that hurt U.S. industry while alienating allies.

And several Davos attendees echoed comments made by European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde last week, in which she said in an unusually candid interview that Trump’s re-election would be a “threat.”

“If we want to draw lessons from history, looking at the way he led the first four years of his mandate, it is clearly a threat,” she told French television.

‘Just look at the trade tariffs, the commitment to NATO, the fight against climate change. “In these three areas alone, U.S. interests have historically been misaligned with those of Europe,” she added.

The World Economic Forum in Switzerland kicked off when Donald Trump won the Iowa caucuses

The World Economic Forum takes place in Davos, in a popular ski resort high in the Swiss Alps

As president, Trump twice attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he put forward his “America first policy.”

Republican Senator JD Vance of Ohio, a Trump ally, told Politico that the global elite “should be afraid” of the former president.

“If Trump stands for anything, I think it is the rejection of their ideology, of the material benefits that flow from it,” he said.

Other business leaders expressed concern about how Trump would handle relations with China. The economic confrontation between Washington and Beijing has become a red flag for the business world.

Trump started a trade war with China with a series of tariffs. China retaliated with its own tariffs.

One of the reasons President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco last year was to show the business community that the two sides could work together for the greater economic good.

“The slight reengagement we’re seeing through the Biden administration is an indication to me that the U.S. wants to stabilize relations with China,” Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered, told CNBC.

“If Trump becomes president, we know he is a transactional president, and there will probably be a transaction somewhere that will keep the economy in balance without fundamentally disrupting that relationship. But of course we are constantly monitoring it, and we are well aware that there could be unintended consequences or accidents,” Winters said.

Donald Trump last visited Davos in 2020, when he was president

Then President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in 2020, followed by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who served as advisors in his White House

And some at the meeting, which is taking place at a popular ski resort high in the Swiss Alps, said Trump’s re-election could be a sign that Europe needs to distance itself from America.

European Commissioner Thierry Breton revealed last week that when Trump was in Davos in 2020, the then-president privately warned that the US would not come to the aid of the European Union if it were attacked militarily.

“You have to understand that if Europe is attacked, we will never come to help and support you,” he said of what Trump told them.

He also said Trump was threatening to leave NATO, a key global alliance.

“By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will leave NATO,” Trump also said, according to Breton, adding, “And by the way, you owe me $400 billion because you haven’t paid, You Germans, what did you have to pay for defense.’

Trump often took an aggressive stance toward other world leaders, complaining many times publicly that the U.S. was paying too much to NATO compared to the rest of the alliance’s members.

Philipp Hildebrand, vice chairman at Blackrock, told the Telegraph that Trump’s re-election would “fundamentally challenge Europe.”

He said Europe should seize the opportunity to transform itself into a technological superpower less dependent on America.

“I see it as an opportunity for building Europe,” he said, adding: “It is clear that if (Trump’s election) were to lead to a rift, which I see as a risk in President Lagarde’s mind has, then that would fundamentally challenge Europe.’