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Why Trump’s Davos farce may come to be seen as a watershed
Whatever his motivations, he’s alarmed allies and made clear the old order based on a benign US is gone, even as his popularity slips at home
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David Dodwell is a journalist focused on Hong Kong and China since the 1970s.
In a week marked by the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s second inauguration as US president and a Davos-based melodrama over his ambitions to own Greenland, it is perhaps timely to review this first year of Trump 2.0 and look into the second.
First, one has to be in awe of the frenetic energy of Trump, who celebrates his 80th birthday in June. Whatever one makes of his meandering, insulting, overbearing and frequently inaccurate address in Davos, made right off his flights from Washington, one cannot but be impressed by his stamina and passion. This is a leader old enough to be thinking daily about his legacy, and driven by the limited time to achieve it.
While 2026 has so far seen Trump focus almost entirely on foreign policy and the international stage – first with gunboat diplomacy, taking effective control of Venezuela, then demanding sovereignty over the 57,000 people of Greenland – it is important to remember Trump’s overriding mission is domestic: making America great again (Maga).
Whatever the potentially grave ramifications, it often feels as if these forays are designed to divert and distract adversaries and the media from controversies that might jeopardise his radical domestic agenda.
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