The President isn't selling out on his campaign platform, but hopes to sell its appeal abroad, going to the Swiss city with a mindset of "America First" and eager to explain to the world's movers and shakers how they stand to benefit from it. In particular, while Trump's protectionist promises understandably scare individuals involved in international finance and some transnational production companies, they also present an opportunity to secure access to the massive American marketplace provided that they play by his new rules.
That's the fundamental problem, though, since observers already expect that he's slated to clash with Macron and possibly even Merkel if she ends up attending, as the EU's globalist heavyweights present a liberal-globalist counter-vision to Trump's conservative-nationalist one. After all, the theme of this year's event is "creating a shared future in a fractured world", which strongly alludes to the paradigm shifts that have been underway since Brexit in 2016 and Trump's election the same year, so it's reasonable why the US and EU are trying to convince the global elite to follow their respective model during these uncertain times. Ideology can only go so far in gaining appeal, however, since at the end of the day it's ultimately a question of power and profit for this class of decision makers.
This brings one around to contemplating some of the other features inherent in Trump's "America First" strategy, and those are its military-driven foreign policy and willingness it "go it alone" in setting a leadership example, such as what the President did in unilaterally recognizing the entirety of Jerusalem as Israel's capital last month. This contrasts with the diplomat-centric outreach of the EU and its general preference for consensual or at least majority-based decision making among its members. In addition, while the EU is struggling to retain the status quo on its home continent, the US is ambitiously acting to change it everywhere across the world in order to "Make America Great Again", intriguingly setting the country up as a "revolutionary leader" of sorts though without any ideology other than its own interests.
Andrew Korybko is joined by Chris Driscoll, co-host of Carson's Corner on Blogtalk Radio, a show that covers activist politics, and he was also Ralph Nader's media director for his 2008 campaign for president, and Joaquin Flores, Editor in Chief of Fort Russ and director of the Center for Syncretic Studies.
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