Donald Trump tells Davos: ‘Now is the perfect time to invest in America’

US President Donald Trump leaves the stage after addressing the global business elite at Davos. (AP)

DAVOS: President Donald Trump lived up to his reputation as a business-focused politician with a special address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos that concentrated on his achievements in economic and financial policy — especially the big tax cuts he has brought in.
He told a packed gathering of business leaders and policymakers that his policies had led to strong economic growth and to stock markets “smashing all records.”
“There has never been a better time to invest in the USA. America is open for business, and now is the perfect time to bring business, jobs and investment to the US,” he told them.
“We have created $7 trillion dollars worth of wealth on the stock markets, and created 2.4 million new jobs in the US,” he said.
The president said that he had “revived the American dream after years of stagnation,” and that his policies had led to the lowest unemployment rates for African, Hispanic and female Americans. He said his tax cuts had increased household incomes “by thousands of dollars” in the US.
In a question session after his address with Klaus Schwab, executive chairman and founder of the WEF, Trump revealed that he had dinner in Davos with 15 business leaders who had “become friends” after he explained his economic policies to them. Some had promised to bring “billions of dollars” back to the US as investment.
He singled out Apple as a company that was going to repatriate $350 billion of funds held in overseas, more tax-efficient jurisdictions. “They (the dinner invites) are putting in money. I didn’t know them before but now they are friends.”
He said that tax reform had been a “dream” of American presidents for nearly 40 years, since President Reagan last undertook a major overhaul of the system.
Much of his address concentrated on the performance of the American economy and stock markets since he became president a year ago. He said that this was because he had reduced regulatory and bureaucratic obstacles to doing business.
“Regulation is stealth taxation. We have teams of unelected bureaucracy who are crushing business,” he said.
Trump said that he had pledged to scrap two regulations for every one he introduced, but in fact had managed to eliminate 22 for each new law.
He also said that his administration had lifted self-imposed restrictions on the energy industry, because “no country should be held hostage over energy.”
Some analysts had forecast a hostile reception and even an organized walkout when the president began speaking, but the delegates mostly listened in silence and gave polite applause at the end.
There were signs of hostility on only two occasions. Some attendees murmured aloud when Schwab, introducing Trump, said that he had been the victim of “misconception and biased interpretation.”
The media contingent in the Davos audience also voiced their disapproval when Trump said that he had always had a good press as a businessman but that since he had become president the media had become “nasty, mean, vicious and fake.”