Bottom Line for Davos Elite: Trump Is Good for Business
While many here are poised to recoil at Mr. Trump’s arrival — diplomats, heads of state
and members of human rights organizations — much of the moneyed elite who pay the bills for many Davos festivities are willing to overlook what they portray as the American president’s rhetorical foibles in favor of focusing on the additional wealth he has delivered to their coffers.
“It’s had psychological impact with the business community, persuading companies to invest and hire.”
Far from an exclusively American view, business leaders from around the world appear to bring this sort of thinking
to bear as they prepare for Mr. Trump’s appearance in Davos, where he is expected to speak on Friday.
“You’re going to see very bifurcated points of view,” said Jeff Schumacher, founder
and chief executive officer of BCG Digital Ventures, a venture capital investment arm of Boston Consulting Group, the global consulting company.
They are worried about the American president’s threats to blow up the North American Free Trade Agreement while undermining
support for the World Trade Organization, the linchpin of the global, rules-based mode of international commerce.
“As global leader, the United States has lost a lot of recognition, purely because of the current leadership,” said Joel Motsweng Baepi, director of governance, regulatory
and corporate affairs in the South African office of Old Mutual, the global insurance company.
“The delegates themselves are likely to be polite to a fault and enthusiastic about the U. S. stock market performance,
but will have difficulty concealing their anxiety about an erratic protection of American power in the world and his own psychological stability,” Mr. Malloch-Brown said
But they like what Mr. Trump has meant for the raging American stock market and, more broadly, enhanced forecasts of global economic growth.
