Davos Shot Heard 'Round the World

A world where happy workers matter...

I was treating President Donald J. Trump's 2026 trip to Davos as an inflection point in world history. It was reported that he was accompanied by a supporting cast of administration officials, cabinet members, and Secret Service personnel who put his team on the ground in Switzerland, numbering at least 200.

The people he chose to accompany him consisted primarily of his economic advisors, including Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. In addition, they were joined by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Ordinarily, I might have been interested in listening to the remarks the President himself made before the W.E.F. attendees; on this occasion, I also took note of what the Americans the President had selected to accompany him were saying.

The Americans who attended the Davos meeting alongside the President of the United States effectively shaped the overall theme and tone of the conference's most important proceedings.

A surprise speaker, a bonus guest and fellow American, Elon Musk, also helped turn this event into an American Tour de Force that upended any hopes that the European status quo, which touts its globalist EU-controlled agendas, might have held in shaping its preferred policy narratives.

Trump’s team was well-versed and all speaking from the same page. They ran a clinic on defining what the Trump Administration hopes to accomplish in the remainder of Trump’s tenure. Moreover, the vision articulated by the President and the staff members who addressed the public forum heralded a new era of economic development and progress that has, to say the least, underperformed in recent decades.

It was left to Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to explain to all concerned why the Trump Administration is using trade and import tariffs in a manner not seen on the American or global stage since the turn of the 20th century, during William McKinley’s presidency. In unmistakable terms, Mr. Greer presented ample evidence that protective tariffs have been judiciously used ever since they were first deployed by America’s first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton.

To be sure, not every American president used tariffs in quite the same way as Hamilton first outlined; some administrations got lured into adopting so-called “free trade” measures. Yet the historical record is incontrovertible: America’s economy thrived most under regimes that employed protective tariffs. Perhaps the apex of their adoption into American trade policies was their most consistent use, beginning with Lincoln and culminating 40 years later in the McKinley era, during which America experienced unprecedented economic progress, popularly referred to as the Industrial Revolution.

Had anyone bothered to listen to Jamieson Greer’s pedagogical presentation, which he jokingly admitted could send WEF conferees into a chance to doze off into comfortable nap time, they would have learned that there is actually such a thing as the American System of Physical Economy which was invented by Alexander Hamilton and upon whose principles, (later refined in subsequent years), the advancement of American civilizational prowess was built upon.

The fact that hardly anyone in the audience ever heard about the so-called “American System” has an exquisite irony, considering the venue in which this lecture was given.

And that is because the World Economic Forum (WEF), which hosts the Davos event every year, has pursued methodologies specifically designed to undermine or marginalize the gains that accrue to national economies when governments apply Hamiltonian teachings to guide their international trade relations.

Perhaps the somewhat bitter pill to swallow was when we are taught that America herself has abandoned those historically tried and true trade policies in favor of free trade and Keynesian or Austrian School of Economics theories that largely took over primacy in the way modern Western European and Anglo-American economies have been run since the end of World War II.

The bitterness comes to the academically astute student who realizes that China and Russia, our perceived adversaries, have used American System practices that have helped propel their economies forward in recent decades when America, the UK, and Europe were hobbled and otherwise handicapped by policy measures that kowtowed to New Green Deal ideologies that have kept the American economy in relative, lethargic mediocrity during our recent past.

Modern critics who deride the economic visionary statements outlined by the Trump speech at Davos and those of his cohorts feel justified in their smug assessments that we are headed for an economic tsunami of incalculable proportions brought on by indebtedness and deficit spending, mis-management and malinvestments that have put the U.S government into 38 trillion of monetary and fiscal near-bankruptcy.

And how do Trump and Bessent figure they can get America out from under the economic woes that every expert political and economic pundit worth his or her salt has unerringly identified?

Trump sought to argue that the United States can emerge from recessionary forecasts and achieve solvency and debt repayment through government policies that incentivize entrepreneurial innovation and heavy industrial investment, thereby kickstarting American ingenuity and advancing the American economy toward prosperity once again.

There is plenty of skepticism to go around.

Doomsayers, naysayers, and social media trolls are not in short supply.

Yet, Trump counters his critics with his contention that the U.S. economy is about to be buttressed with over 18 trillion dollars of foreign investment promised by high-tech firms (that could even push the 20 trillion mark) and automakers that are building factories and re-patriating American companies back on American soil, precisely because of his use of tariffs.

Trade tariffs that have endeared themselves to this administration—not seen since McKinley’s time in the Oval Office. From the European point of view, among whom, by the way, have their own import tariffs in place, there was no doubt that some leaders, how shall we say, look down their noses at the Trump contingent of Americans.

That was on full display in no uncertain terms when Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, a globalist institution at its core, walked out of the speech given at a WEF-hosted dinner by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The same speech was booed by Al Gore, the former Vice President under Bill Clinton, who has been an outspoken advocate and educator for more extreme positions on climate change and environmentalism.

It’s understandable that more than a few feathers would have been ruffled by the U.S. delegation and particularly by the remarks that Lutnick made. He was blunt in his assessment of the policies that have been the mainstay of the climate change fear mongers centered in European capitals:

“We are in Davos at the World Economic Forum, and the Trump administration and myself. We are here to make a very clear point. Globalization has failed the West and the United States of America. It’s a failed policy,” Lutnick said.

Globalization was promoted as a way to make the world a better place, but in reality, it hollowed out domestic industrial bases and weakened national economies. The model prioritized offshoring production and far-shoring supply chains, which left America and its workers behind in the long run, he added.

Under its ‘America First’ policy, the Trump administration is advocating a different approach, placing domestic workers and national interests at the center of economic decision-making, said Lutnick, adding that other countries should also consider adopting this model.

“And what we are here to say is that America first is a different model, one that we encourage other countries to consider, which is that our workers come first,” he said.¹

What?

You mean open borders and mass immigration, as pushed under Biden and his European allies, by unskilled foreign nationals hasn’t helped domestic economies thrive where allowed?

What? Gutting out gas and oil infrastructure incentives, mothballing nuclear power, wrecking the Nord Stream gas pipeline (bringing cheap Russian natural gas), dismantling baseline machine tool industries, cluttering the landscape with windmills while hammering the need to de-carbonize under net zero government policies, hasn’t increased the quality or standard of living for most Europeans and many Americans?

Rolling brownouts from overreliance on renewables in places such as California and Germany, and even in unexpected locations, as in Texas during winter conditions, have prompted policymakers to reconsider the rapid phasing out of fossil fuels.

What is so ironic is that the blame for all these failed policies of what Trump has termed the “green energy scam” has been put on the United States when it was made readily apparent by the historiographical speech that Greer made referencing the specific economics of America’s past that there is scant similarity to what built American prosperity then to what is being foisted upon the Trans-Atlantic West by globalist ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) policies of today.

That is, until Trump returned to the White House. Citing his list of improved economic indicators, in the first year as the 47th President, he makes a strong case that Europe is stuck in unrealistic ideologies that don’t work for the majority of people.

Howard Lutnick got it right. The name “America First” model of economy may operate under the guise of a new name, yet its principles, as succinctly summarized by Greer’s speech in Davos, go back to America’s founding under the brilliant authorship of Alexander Hamilton.

“Our Workers Come First!” might well be as powerful a mantra as “Make America Great Again”.

Now that it is being finally revealed that the unique economic formulas innovated by the American System of Physical Economy in prior decades, which allowed the U.S. to become the strongest advanced economy in the world, are being re-deployed in the Trump Administration, it will become readily apparent that Lutnick is correct in his assessment that globalism is a failed policy.

The important takeaway is the recognition that the distinguishing features of the economic systems being compared are, in the broadest sense, the vast difference between an authentic Republic and its shadowy counterpart: a disguised oligarchy—rule by an entitled few still ensnared in feudalistic ideologies attempting to appear democratic.

Remember how Lincoln ended his famous Gettysburg address; Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

And for such a government to endure, for us to “Keep our Republic”, we need our people to be educated and healthy—perhaps most importantly— grounded in a work ethic informed by traditional, moral, Judeo-Christian family values. An economy does not thrive without a wholesome, trained, and skilled workforce. A country languishes when the common people are preyed upon by an uncaring elite’s extortionist practices in unfettered corporatism, rather than being cherished as the precious human capital and intellectual resource required to build greatness and progress.

Notes:

1. https://www.wionews.com/world/-globalisation-failed-the-west-and-us-says-us-commerce-secretary-howard-lutnick-at-davos-2026-1768990421968