Companies, come and make your products in the USA; we will give you the lowest taxes on Earth. If not, you will have to pay a tariff.
The affirmation took place today in a conference with the president of the United States at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, to which Trump assisted telematically. The floor was shared with the president and CEO of the World Economic Forum, Børge Brende; the co-founder of Blackstone, Stephen A. Schwarzman, the CEO of the Bank of America, Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Banco Santander, Ana Botín and the CEO of TotalEngines (the fourth largest oil and gas company in the world), Patrick Pouyanné.
The president stated on diverse occasions his desire to transform the US into a “manufacturing superpower”. To achieve his goal, he affirmed he plans to double the U.S.’s current energy production by fast-tracking approvals for expanded oil extraction and the development of new plants. In addition to this, he criticized the Green New Deal—recently abandoned by the US- and ridiculed the experts that talk about climate change.
Moreover, he sent a message to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and, concretely, to Saudi Arabia: “lower the prices of oil, I was very surprised that you did not do it before I was invested”. Although this, he made clear his good relation with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, first foreign leader to whom Trump first called after taking over.
The victimization of the United States was something recurrent in his speech. Donald Trump repeated in several occasions that lately the US has not been treated “fairly” by a long list of states and organizations in diverse contexts. He mentioned, for example, the trade deficits with China, the European Union, and Canada; and the military investment threshold for NATO, not met by most of the states. Regarding the latter, the president stated that he will ask the organization to raise it to a 5% of each country’s GDP.
