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Commentary
The Wall Street Journal

Trump Keeps Davos Man Off-Balance

He offers threats to Putin, flexibility for Xi and even an olive branch for Iran.

walter_russell_mead
walter_russell_mead
Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship
United States President Donald Trump during his address at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on January 23, 2025. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
Caption
United States President Donald Trump during his address at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on January 23, 2025. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

Donald Trump is an American president like no other, and his political resurrection hasn’t shaken up only American politics. Mr. Trump is trying to remake the world, and in the first week of his presidency, he is having an outsize impact.

Even Davos Man gets it. After the World Economic Forum’s founder Klaus Schwab thanked the American president for agreeing to address the group by video, participants—who in other years might have booed, laughed or stalked out in ostentatious protest at Mr. Trump’s uncompromising exposition of his views—sat silently and respectfully as the president attacked almost everything that Davos Man holds dear.

Read the full article in The Wall Street Journal.