The horrifying details of Trump’s rant aside, what strikes me about the Trump administration’s performance at Davos — not just Trump himself but his minions — was the utter lack of purpose. The whole Trump team seems to have gone to Europe with no goal other than to belittle and insult their hosts.
On Tuesday evening Howard Lutnick, the Commerce secretary, spoke to a private dinner at Davos — at which he belittled European economies and their lack of competitiveness. He was reportedly booed, and Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, walked out.
On Wednesday morning Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, dismissed reports that one major Danish pension fund has decided to divest itself of U.S. bonds by declaring that “Denmark’s investment in U.S. Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.”
And Trump devoted much of his speech to portraying Europe as a hellhole, its economy destroyed by renewable energy and its society destroyed by immigration.
Never mind whether any of this is true. (It isn’t.) What was the point of saying such things? Do Trump and his Mini-Mes imagine that they can convince European leaders that they, their economies, and their societies are all pathetic losers?
To say what should be obvious but apparently isn’t, we don’t need top government officials playing at being shock-jock podcasters, getting clicks by being outrageous. God knows, Trump Admin has plenty of those already. Official speeches aren’t supposed to be rants that provide red meat to your political base. They’re supposed to influence people who aren’t your supporters, in ways that serve the national interest.
This doesn’t mean that official speeches must be mealy-mouthed and boring. Mark Carney’s speech definitely wasn’t. But Carney had a clear purpose: To rally other nations into solidarity against U.S. economic blackmail.
Trump, on the other hand, just wanted to swagger, whine, and mostly hear himself talk. And all he accomplished was to turn suspicions that he’s gone off the deep end into certainty.
On Tuesday Mark Carney, Canada’s Prime Minister, gave a remarkable speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In effect he announced, calmly and lucidly, that Canada is filing for divorce from the Pax Americana.