Attendees listen to a virtual speech delivered by U.S. president Donald Trump, at the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 23, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP
U.S. President Donald Trump used an address on Thursday (January 23, 2025) to the World Economic Forum to promise global elites lower taxes if they bring manufacturing to the U.S. and threatened to impose tariffs if they don’t.
Speaking by video from the White House to the annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, on his third full day in office, President Trump ran through his flurry of executive actions since his swearing-in and claimed that he had a “massive mandate” from the American people to bring change. He laid out a carrot-and-stick approach for private investment in the U.S.
“Come make your product in America and we will give you among the lowest taxes as any nation on earth,” President Trump said. “But if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then very simply, you will have to pay a tariff — differing amounts — but a tariff, which will direct hundreds of billions of dollars and even trillions of dollars into our treasury to strengthen our economy and pay down debt under the Trump administration.”
President Trump, who spoke on Wednesday to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, also said Thursday that the kingdom wants to invest $600 billion in the U.S. but that he would ask Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to increase it to $1 trillion. The remark drew some laughter from the crowd in the hall in Davos.
Introducing President Trump, Davos founder Klaus Schwab told the new president that his return and his agenda have “been at the focus of our discussions this week.” He invited President Trump to speak at the summit in person next year.
President Trump, who promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war before taking office, said it remained a top priority, but he offered few clues for how he would do so.
“One thing very important: I really would like to be able to meet with President Putin soon and get that war ended,” President Trump told the Davos audience. “We really have to stop that war. That war is horrible”
Earlier in his address to the forum, President Trump laid blame on the OPEC+ alliance of oil exporting countries for keeping the price of oil too high for much of the nearly three-year war. Oil sales are the economic engine driving Moscow’s economy.
“If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately,” President Trump said. He added about OPEC+, “They are very responsible to a certain extent for what’s taking place.”
Oil prices have more recently slumped due to weaker-than-expected demand from China as well as increased production from countries such as Brazil and Argentina that aren’t in OPEC+.
Published – January 24, 2025 12:15 am IST
