US President Donald Trump used an address on Thursday to the World Economic Forum to promise global elites lower taxes if they bring manufacturing to the US and threatened to impose tariffs if they do not.
Speaking by video from the White House to the annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, on his third full day in office, Mr 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 US.
“Come make your product in America and we will give you among the lowest taxes as any nation on earth,” Mr 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.”
Mr Trump, who spoke on Wednesday to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, also said Thursday that the kingdom wants to invest 600 billion dollars (£486 billion) in the US but that he would ask Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to increase it to one trillion dollars. The remark drew some laughter from the crowd in the hall in Davos.
Introducing Mr 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 Mr Trump to speak at the summit in person next year.
Mr Trump, who promised before taking office to end the Russia-Ukraine war, 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,” he told the Davos audience. “We really have to stop that war. That war is horrible.”
Earlier in his address to the forum, Mr 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,” Mr 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 because of weaker-than-expected demand from China as well as increased production from countries such as Brazil and Argentina that are not in OPEC+.
