Cohn and McMaster both laid out the president’s schedule for the conference, which includes a speech and dinner with the heads of European companies to encourage investment in the US economy.
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“The president believes we can have truly win-win agreements”.
Ahead of the trip, Mr Trump imposed tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines.
“This is about an America first agenda, but America first does mean working with the rest of the world”, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a news conference Wednesday morning.
But many observers and analysts see an irreconcilable conflict of economic philosophies.
The very theme of this year’s World Economic Forum, “Creating a shared future in a fractured world”, seems pointedly aimed at countering Trump’s populist, nationalist agenda.
Neither leader mentioned President Trump by name but both took thinly veiled digs at the American president, who has pulled the USA out of the Paris accord on climate change and ditched a Pacific trade deal he blasted as unfair.
“Trump is just one of the other people we disagree with”.
Trump will be the first USA president to attend Davos in 20 years, giving him a chance to mingle with the same elite “globalists” that he bashed in his 2016 presidential run.
The former real estate tycoon is “firmly committed to being the best salesperson the U.S. has to drive economic growth and drive prosperity and drive a better quality of life for American citizens”, Cohn said.
Britain is keen to reinforce its “special relationship” with the United States as May’s government prepares to leave the European Union, a divorce that will shape the country’s standing in the world.
“Although everybody is talking about an interconnected world, we must accept globalization is slowly losing its luster”, he said. A statement later said Mrs. Trump was honoring International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday. “His approach to world affairs is anathema to those world leaders”.
After one-on-one meetings with the leaders of Britain and Israel, Trump was due Friday to sit down with Rwandan President Paul Kagame before addressing the forum as a whole.
The planned trip to open the embassy would have been a lower-key official visit but Mr Trump cancelled it, publicly blaming a poor financial deal for the property which he said was in an “off location” south of the Thames – although allies indicated that possible protests could have been a factor.
Among them will be ones about Iran and “ways to achieve last peace” in the region, Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, told reporters. “The difference is the United States troops are now coming to the ramparts”, he added.
The meeting comes weeks after Trump was reported to have used a vulgar slur to describe African countries during a conversation about immigration.
Heads of state who have spoken at the meeting, from the Canadian Prime Minister to the German and French leaders, have unequivocally denounced Trump’s brand of protectionism and the harm it is doing to globalisation.
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A vocal critic of trade deals he sees as unfair to the United States, Trump will also stress the need for what he sees as fair competition.
