President Donald Trump proudly touted his America First policies to a room full of global elites at the belly of the beast in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday.
Trump delivered the keynote address to the World Economic Forum’s annual event remotely from Washington DC, laying out his MAGA agenda—from freezing foreign aid to dismantling “Green New Deal” and “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” policies, calling the latter “absolute nonsense.”
Trump told the WEF elites that the U.S. has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord and scuttled Joe Biden’s “EV mandate” that sought to ensure half of all new vehicles sold in the United States by 2030 were electric.
Trump also detailed the steps he’s taken to end the weaponization of government and to stop the “invasion” at the Southern Border.
Toward the beginning of his remarks, the president said America had entered “a Golden Age” and that his decisive win in November had given him a “massive mandate from the American people.” Trump declared that his first 72 hours in office had been “nothing less than a revolution of common sense.”
“Our country will soon be stronger, wealthier, and more united than ever before and the entire entire planet will be more peaceful and prosperous as a result of this incredible momentum,” he said.
The Washington Post fussed in its live blog that the president was not “tempering his rhetoric” at all for the elite crowd.
But Trump was only getting started.
The president went on to blast the “totally inept group of people” in Joe Biden’s “failed” administration.
Over the past four years, our government racked up $8 trillion in wasteful deficit spending and inflicted nation-wrecking energy restrictions, crippling regulations, and hidden taxes like never before. The result is the worst inflation crisis in modern history and sky-high interest rates for our citizens and even throughout the world. Food prices and the price of almost every other thing known to mankind went through the roof.
President Biden totally lost control of what was going on in our country but, in particular, with our high-inflation economy and at our border. Because of these ruinous policies, total government spending this year is $1.5 trillion higher than was projected to occur when I left office just four years ago. Likewise, the cost of servicing the debt is more than 230 percent higher than was projected in 2020.
He went on to trash one of the WEF’s top agenda items, calling it a “scam.”
“I terminated the ridiculous and incredibly wasteful Green New Deal — I call it the “Green New Scam,” Trump declared, adding that the U.S. “withdrew from the one-sided Paris Climate Accord and ended the insane and costly electric vehicle mandate. We’re going to let people buy the car they want to buy.”
Trump also told the open borders Davos crowd that he was “taking swift action to stop the invasion at our southern border.”
“They allowed people to come in at levels that nobody has ever seen before,” Trump said. “It was ridiculous.”
The president said he declared a national emergency on the southern border to immediately halt all entry of illegal border crossers, “of which there were many.”
Trump stated that his administration has already began “properly returning the illegal trespassers back to the place from which they came.”
“I have deployed active duty U.S. military and National Guard troops to the border to assist in repelling the invasion. It was really an invasion. We will not allow our territory to be violated after four long years,” he added.
Trump also made a point to tell his globalist audience that “America is a free nation once again.”
On day one, I signed an executive order to stop all government censorship. No longer will our government label the speech of our own citizens as misinformation or disinformation, which are the favorite words of censors and those who wish to stop the free exchange of ideas and, frankly, progress. We have saved free speech in America, and we’ve saved it strongly.
With another historic executive order this week, I also ended the weaponization of law enforcement against the American people — and, frankly, against politicians — and restored the fair, equal, and impartial rule of law.
My administration has taken action to abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion nonsense — and these are policies that were absolute nonsense — throughout the government and the private sector. With the recent, yet somewhat unexpected, great Supreme Court decision just made, America will once again become a merit-based country. You have to hear that word: merit-based country.
During his remarks, the president also pressed NATO countries to increase defense spending to five percent of their gross domestic product.
“It was only at two percent, and most nations didn’t pay until I came along,” he said. “I insisted that they pay, and they did, because the United States was really paying the difference at that time. And it was unfair to the United States.”
Trump addressed global businesses, saying “if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, you will pay a tariff.” Trump told them if they make their products in America, they will receive favorable tax breaks for doing so.
During the Q&A, Trump admonished Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon for debanking conservatives.
“Many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business,” he said, leveling an accusation the Washington Post called “baseless.”
Federal Deposit Insurance Program (FDIC) Vice Chairman Travis Hill, however, overtly condemned the practice of debanking in a recent speech.
“Over the past few years, there have been various accounts of individuals and businesses associated with the crypto industry losing access to bank accounts without explanation,” Hill stated in January 10, 2025.
“This follows a long history of other types of customers experiencing the problem of debanking, including the politically disfavored business groups targeted by the original ‘Operation Choke Point,’ individuals associated with certain religious or political groups, and many others,” he continued. “Efforts to debank law-abiding customers are unacceptable, regulators must work to end it, and there is no place at the FDIC for anyone who has pushed — explicitly or implicitly — banks to stop serving law-abiding customers,” Hill declared.
“I hope you’re going to open your banks to conservatives because what you’re doing is wrong,” Trump told the bankers.
Trump said the United States would begin “demanding respect from other nations” and singled out Canada as a country that has been “very tough to deal with.”
The president maintained that Canada could “become a state” in the United States as a way of eliminating America’s trade deficit with the country, adding the U.S. “does not need their cars, lumber, or oil and gas.”
He said he would “demand that interest rates drop immediately.”
The President was also critical of the European Union, saying that the U.S. was treated “very, very unfairly, very badly” by the EU and that there were “some big complaints with the EU.” Trump reiterated his contention that the Ukraine-Russia war would not have started if he had been president, and said that he would like to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Asked about the U.S. relationship with China, Trump said that he foresees the relationship over the next four year to be “very good” but still “unfair” due to trade deficits. He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic strained that relationship, but he said he looks forward to “getting along with China.”
“Hopefully China can help us stop the war with, in particular Russia, Ukraine,” Trump added.
Trump heaped praise on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, calling him “a fantastic guy” for investing $600 billion in the United States.
Bin Salman reportedly promised Trump on Wednesday to increase Saudi Arabia’s investment and trade with the United States by at least $600 billion over the next four years.
“I’ll be asking the crown prince, who’s a fantastic guy, to round it out to around $1 trillion,” Trump said during his remote remarks in Davos. “I think they’ll do that because we’ve been very good to them. And I’m also going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil. You got to bring it down, which frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t do before the election.”
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