With Davos dominated by Trump’s second coming, global collaboration is out
With Davos dominated by Trump’s second coming, global collaboration is out
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Adapting themselves to Trump’s zero-sum worldview, global leaders ditched any appeal to high-flown ideas. In the heady mountain air of Davos last week, away from the parties and the back-slapping tech bros, another, more beleaguered crew touted their wares: the multilateralists.
![[Heather Stewart]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2024/11/15/Heather_Stewart,_L.png?width=180&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, representatives of aid agencies, development banks and multilateral lenders grabbed a moment with the many world leaders present, vying for attention among the glitz. But at a summit dominated by the second coming of Donald Trump, and where the overwhelming concentration of power in the hands of a few giant corporations was blatant, theirs seemed like voices from another age.
Trump’s arrival in the White House cements a shift that began even before his first term: away from the relentless march of globalisation, towards a more fragmented world. Russia, once welcomed into what became the G8, is promulgating a war in Europe, its economy now walled up behind sanctions; China and the US are vying for geopolitical dominance.
As EU Commission chair Ursula von der Leyen put it, “we have entered a new era of harsh geostrategic competition”. Adapting themselves to Trump’s transactional, zero-sum worldview, global leaders ditched any appeal to high-flown ideas, and rattled out negotiating points.
