President Donald Trump (center) arrives, flanked by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (left), to address the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) January 26, 2018 in Davos, Switzerland.
Nicolas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images
DAVOS, Switzerland ꟷ Donald Trump is not among the participants in this year’s edition of the Davos World Economic Forumbut his potential re-election as president of the United States is an integral part of the discussions in the Swiss Alpine resort.
“All the questions I’ve been asked while walking the (Davos) promenade today are, ‘Is he coming back?'” Tim Adams, president of the Institute, told CNBC on Tuesday. of international finance.
“So I think there’s a lot of interest in this question and what does that mean, and who would occupy the key positions,” he added.
Trump won the Iowa caucuses earlier this week, setting a record margin of victory in the meetings. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis came in a distant second, followed by former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
The vote in Iowa was seen as the first big test of the Republican primary campaign ahead of the 2024 presidential election. While Trump is leading the Republican field so far, the November election will likely be another runner-up turn between the former president and the outgoing Democratic president. Joe Biden.
Some Davos attendees are already preparing for a potential Republican leader in the White House.
“Given what happened when President Trump was in office, his main interest is trade. So we have to expect trade issues to be very serious,” CEO Takeshi Niinami told CNBC on Wednesday. from Japanese beverage manufacturer Suntory.
He added that his company was allocating more resources to its U.S. operations so it could protect itself against any trade disputes.
“We must produce locally, particularly in the United States. (…) We have scenarios to be able to respond to this change in leadership,” he added. The United States is one of the main markets for Suntory, which is looking to expand its sales beyond China.
Over the past 12 months, the U.S. Congress has been dominated by uncertainty, with changes in House speakership, friction over spending plans and foreign policy priorities, to name just a few crises.
For Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered, one of the main questions is how a new US leader would interact with China, after years of tensions between Washington and Beijing.
“The slight re-engagement that we are seeing through the Biden administration is an indication to me that the United States is seeking to stabilize (relations with China),” the CEO of the largest bank said, winking look at recent trips by American officials to China.
“If Trump becomes president, we know he’s a transactional president, and there’s probably a transaction in there somewhere, that keeps the economy on a level playing field, without fundamentally disrupting that relationship. But of course , we observe all the time, and we “We are well aware that there could be unintended consequences or accidents,” Winters said.
Asked what Trump’s return could mean for U.S. fiscal policy, the IIF’s Adams replied: “We have a debt problem globally. We have the highest debt levels in a non-war period in modern history and this concerns businesses, households, states, sub-sovereign. »
“We have a huge budget problem everywhere, including in the United States. We have a deficit of 7% of GDP. We need sobriety and we need to focus on how we are going to get our fiscal house in order public,” he said. .
Even in one of the hotels in Davos, the conversation was still focused on Trump. Two participants were heard discussing the latest developments on the US political scene, with one expressing displeasure over a possible repeat of the last election, which saw incumbent President Trump lose to Biden.
“Nothing is being done in American politics anymore,” the speaker said.
EU concerned about US elections
But discussions around the American elections go beyond Davos. A senior EU official told CNBC on Wednesday that the bloc had concerns and was “preparing for any option.”
The European Union, the political and economic organization of 27 countries, has already been criticized by political experts for not taking Trump’s election seriously in 2016. The EU and Trump have clashed on many issues , particularly on trade and the role of multilateral institutions. .
“Of course it will have an influence within the EU,” Vera Jourova, vice-president of the European Commission, told CNBC in Davos about the US elections.
“If Mr. Trump becomes president… we could see a strengthening of Russia and a growing appetite by Putin to seize more territory, which would directly endanger the security of our member states,” he said. she said, adding that “we have concerns, we are preparing for any option.”
— CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report.
