WASHINGTON (TNND) — President Donald Trump celebrated his inauguration and election victory while speaking virtually at the World Economic Forum that’s being held in Switzerland.
Speaking by video from the White House to the annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, on his third full day in office, Trump ran through his executive actions since his swearing-in and claimed that he had a “massive mandate” from the American people to bring change.
Elite leaders heard from Trump on Thursday.
“My message to every business in the world is very simple. Come make your product in America and we will give you among the lowest tax cuts of any nation on Earth, said Trump.
He then threatened to impose tariffs if they don’t.
“But if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then very simply you will have to pay a tariff,” he explained. “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 bring down our debt.”
Trump, who spoke Wednesday to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, also said Thursday that the kingdom wants to invest $600 billion in the U.S.
He said he will as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to increase it to $1 trillion.
“I think they’ll do that because we’ve been very good to them,” he said.
Another ask Trump announced was that he will ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil.
According to Trump, when oil prices drop he will “demand that interest rates drop immediately.”
Lastly, Trump announced he is asking NATO nations to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP.
He said it was at 2% and that some nations didn’t pay, but that changed when he returned to the White House.
Introducing 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 Trump to speak at the summit in person next year.
The fourth day of the annual gathering also features Javier Milei, the brash Argentine president, and Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Business and tech whizzes will also be in attendance. Dario Amodei of Anthropic, maker of artificial intelligence model Claude, and chief AI scientist Yann LeCun of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta will tackle the future of technology.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen will take up energy transition with the head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol.
Trump is no stranger to the gathering of CEOs, startup visionaries, government leaders, world-class academics and other elites who meet in the snowy Swiss town of Davos each January. He came twice during his first term, according to the Associated Press.
Editor’s Note: Associated Press contributed to this report.