Spectre of Donald Trump hangs over Davos as global elite prepare to descend on the Swiss ski resort
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The spectre of Donald Trump is haunting the world’s elites as they prepare to gather in Davos. The Swiss ski resort will next week be alive with the sound of clinking champagne flutes and chin-wagging billionaires attending the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
![[Returning: Last year it was Argentinian president Javier Milei (pictured) who thrilled the meeting with his robust defence of capitalists as ‘heroes’]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/15/22/94142533-14289443-Returning_Last_year_it_was_Argentinian_president_Javier_Milei_pi-m-3_1736978890213.jpg)
But away from the frenzied backslapping and behind the tinted windows of SUVs choking the town’s streets, all is not well. A survey published yesterday by the WEF ahead of the meeting revealed that 88 per cent of global leaders and experts think the next couple of years will be either ‘stormy’, ‘turbulent’ or ‘unsettled’ – with worse to come over the longer term.
That is even more pessimistic than the same poll’s notably gloomy outlook a year ago. And the poll was conducted before the election of Trump in November – a result that will have made the typical Davos mover and shaker even more worried. The start of Trump’s second term will overshadow the week in Davos.
Main event: Donald Trump (pictured) will be inaugurated on Monday and three days later will address delegates virtually. He will be inaugurated on Monday and, three days later, the President – who has twice before appeared at Davos in person – will address delegates virtually in what is almost certain to prove the summit’s key event.
And his return to the White House signals that disruption created by his first term will be no blip. From free trade and climate change to defence spending and the future of Ukraine, the common principals, ambitions and assumptions of Western leaders are being overturned.
