By Paritosh Bansal, Dave Graham and Dmitry Zhdannikov
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 23 (Reuters) – As President Donald Trump and other top U.S. officials rolled through the icy streets of Davos this week, fear and in some cases loathing were mixed with resignation over the administration’s way of doing business.
While many people at the event told Reuters they thought some of Trump’s positions on global issues, such as demands that Europe spend more on its own security, had merit, they were deeply offended by the way he and his team presented them.
“It was kind of overwhelming. It was the full Trump show we got here,” said Conradin Cramer, head of the cantonal government of the Swiss city of Basel following Trump’s address on Wednesday to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting.
“He was very outspoken against Europe, against European values, and that was frightening for me,” Cramer told Reuters.
Business leaders were also nervous, with two U.S.-based bankers admitting at the start they were worried about a full-blown trade war developing that would hit business sentiment.
WEF’S MOST EVENTFUL MEETING?
Several participants said that by some measures, this was one of the most eventful meetings in five decades of the WEF, which had labelled this year’s event “A Spirit of Dialogue”.
Trump struck a Greenland deal on the sidelines with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and oversaw the signing of his new Board of Peace, drawing several world leaders to Davos.
The president and other U.S. officials also said they were close to a peace deal in Ukraine, which came into focus on Thursday when President Volodymyr Zelenskiy travelled to Davos.
President Vladimir Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev also held talks with U.S. officials on the sidelines, the first Russian official to come to Davos since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Several participants told Reuters that the annual meeting — the first since WEF founder Klaus Schwab’s departure last year — had been a win for BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
A spokesperson said Schwab was not available for comment.
Fink, who is also WEF co-chair, used his influence to attract big names including billionaire Elon Musk, who made his Davos debut as a last-minute addition to the agenda.
Trump said Fink turned everything he touched to gold.
Moderators in some sessions appeared to avoid tough questions and the agenda largely skirted issues that the Trump administration has opposed. The programme featured four sessions that referenced climate change, whereas in 2022 there were 16.
Trump spoke for more than an hour, well over his allotted time on the agenda, and by the time he sat down for a moderated question-and-answer session a small but steady trickle of delegates were already leaving the room.
TRUMP AGENDA LOOMS LARGE
Several participants said that while Trump loomed large, business did get done at Davos, with executives meeting clients and customers and discussing issues ranging from geopolitics and trade to stablecoins and artificial intelligence.
Francesco Ceccato, CEO of Barclays in Europe, said the meeting had a “mixture of geopolitics that can’t be ignored”.
But there had also been “a lot of really interesting dialogue” around AI and related issues such as investment risk and energy needs, Ceccato told Reuters.
The Trump agenda permeated many of the discussions.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick drew sharp reactions when he slammed Europe at a Fink-hosted dinner, which European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde walked out of.
The next night at a Bank of America soiree, Lutnick held court with CEO Brian Moynihan, said a source familiar with the event at ‘Goals House’, where British finance minister Rachel Reeves played chess and Marcus Mumford performed live, including an acoustic version of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m on Fire’.
As usual at the parties and meetings around Davos, attendees gossiped and traded rumours, although some triggered anxiety.
Early on in the week, one circulated that mobile and internet networks would be shut down when Trump arrived in town.
As it turned out, both phones and internet worked fine.
(Reporting by Paritosh Bansal, Dave Graham, Samia Nakhoul, Dmitry Zhdannikov, Oliver Hirt, Arianne Luthi, Vitalii Yalahuzian, Divya Chowdhury, Mark John and John Revill; Editing by Alexander Smith)
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