The president of the United States, Donald Trump, presented this Thursday to the participants of the Davos forum (Switzerland) his plans, exposing his dissatisfaction with the treatment that the EU dispenses to his country in economic matters and ensuring that he will ask the allies of the NATO that spends 5% of GDP in defense, three percentage points more than the current objective.
“I want to be constructive because I love Europe. But from the point of view of the United States, the EU treats us very, very unfairly, very badly, ”Trump said in his videoconference speech from Washington. Then, he explained his complaint reasons, substantially anchored in a commercial relationship that he considers unfairly unbalanced, but also adding criticism to fines for infractions of the free competition regime against US companies, which he described as a form of hidden imposition. “Thus, we have great complaints with the EU,” he concluded.
The discomfort in the economic front adds to the one that Trump manifests by the military spending of many NATO partners – they give up European – who in his opinion is insufficient. He formalized with a resounding language his demand to go to much more. “I will ask all NATO nations to increase the 5%defense spending,” noting that the limited investment of others constitutes another way of taking advantage of the US The prism of the commercial exchange balance and military contributions – is the essential axis of the conception of international relations.
In his speech – a speech followed by an exchange of questions and answers with four outstanding business leaders, including Ana Patricia Botín, president of Banco Santander – said that he wants to be able to meet “soon with the president [Vladímir] Putin ”to promote a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, and that mentioned the matter in his recent telephone conversation with the president of China, Xi Jinping. “I hope China can help us to stop the war between Russia and Ukraine. They have a lot of power over that situation. And we will work with them. And I have mentioned this matter in our recent conversation. ” Asked if in a year, in the next edition of the forum, there would be peace in Ukraine, he replied: “You have to ask Russia.” During the electoral campaign he maintained that he would solve the matter in 24 hours.
On the internal plane, Trump said he is carrying out “a revolution of common sense.” He emphasized his determination to carry out the “greater campaign of deregulation in history” and also “the greatest reduction of history in history.”
The cultural battle also emerged in his speech, with a passage dedicated to his willingness to abolish all the “absurd” measures to favor diversity, equity and inclusion, which crossed out of discrimination. He affirmed that under his command, the US will be a country again governed by merit. However, allusions to the cultural battle were minimal with respect to the monothematic intervention of the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, on the morning of Thursday.
The entire intervention let the transactional conception of Trump’s relationships perspire. The president mentioned reports from an alleged Saudi project to invest about 600,000 million dollars. “I will call the prince, who is a fantastic guy, and I will tell him to round him to a billion. I think he will do it because we have been very good with them. ” Prince Mohammed Bin Salmán was considered by the administration of Joe Biden as the head of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Türkiye. He was not the only authoritarian leader praised by Trump, who also said he “likes” Xi Jinping.
“I will also ask them to help lower the price of crude oil,” he said in reference to the Saudi Trump, who said that lowering the price of oil – what would limit Russia’s income – has the potential to finish the war in Ukraine.
After the initial speech, about 15 minutes, Trump received the questions from four business leaders – in addition to Booty, Stephen Schwarzman, president of Blackstone; Brian Moynihan, president of Bank of America, and Patrick Pouyanné, of total energy. Both Botín and Schwarzman showed their appreciation for the deregulation agenda and asked about it. Trump did not enter more details. Botín took advantage of the circumstance to synthetically portray his bank against Trump, who replied that he knew him and praised his “fantastic work.” Less fluid was the exchange with Moyhinan, which the president reproached that US banks do not adequately grant credit to conservatives.
