Trump goes to the liberal temple with his new capitalist gospel
The Davos summits, organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF), have always willingly accepted their role as guardians of economic and democratic liberalism. But at the start of its meetings of political leaders with business leaders, central bankers, economists, and social and climate voices in 2026, it will not be able to avoid its emerging fragility. It is no longer the forum that boasted of having properly analysed the oil crisis of the 1970s, or of weaving together the end of apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s with the image of Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk, of promoting and ordering globalisation in the 1990s, of first illuminating and then elevating the G-20 as a global economic government after the credit collapse of 2008, consolidating energy neutrality, digitalisation and gender inclusion in corporate strategies over the past decade, or explaining the changing and increasingly geopolitical new world order in which the WEF is embroiled this decade. The Trump 2.0 version has eroded his legitimacy to analyse the current times and launch his highly topical debates onto the world stage, now focused on global economic stagflation, high geopolitical tension, geostrategic attacks and retreats, the race for global competitiveness, the struggle for technological hegemony, and the collapse of multilateralism and globalisation.
Donald Trump has imposed his narrative. The meeting at the Swiss winter resort, which will continue throughout this week, will reveal a Davos that is no longer a space for technocratic optimism but has been transformed into a platform for containment, where public and private actors seek to reduce damage rather than design expansion. His administration will confirm that American foreign policy already functions as a tool for internal positioning, in the face of a polarised electorate and a potentially more hostile Congress, with expansionist ambitions towards Greenland, colonising ambitions towards Panama, annexationist ambitions towards Canada and declared hostility towards Europe. Declaration of dangerous intentions towards Washington’s historical allies. But without neglecting its geostrategic rivals. Although China and Russia remain eerily and disturbingly silent. Davos is uncomfortable with this new combination of democratic control and domestic protectionism and threatening, warmongering rhetoric in the diplomatic arena imposed by the Republican leader, who will attend Davos in person after his 2025 telematic intervention as soon as he returns to the White House. The dogma of faith devised in the 1970s by its great prophet, Klaus Schwab, the true alma mater of Davos since its creation, in 1971, to bring harmonious dialogue to a globalised world and understanding between industrialised powers, emerging markets and the Global South on major planetary challenges, under a liberal-capitalist system with orderly rules, a free market and democratic models, is beginning to crumble like a house of cards.
Three signs of the collapse of global equilibrium:
- Davos no longer articulates visions of the future, but rather mechanisms for managing chain reactions of crises. It is ceasing to be a reputational stage and risks being subjected to the whims of leaders who only manage downward diplomatic expectations.
- The global slowdown amplifies the political impact of unilateral trade decisions. It is a weakened multilateralism, with a loss of global coordination power that amplifies the weight of national decisions with systemic effects.
- Trump’s international agenda is conditioned by a restrictive domestic electoral cycle. The political economy of risk is emerging in the United States, with companies and investors prioritising regulatory predictability over accelerated growth.
Interference in monetary sovereignty, the great attack on the free market
Trump’s pressure on the Fed reopens a debate that transcends the United States and reaches the global monetary system. When politics influences central banks, inflation ceases to be technical and becomes power again. The Trump administration’s offensive against the Fed marks a turning point in the relationship between political power and monetary authority in advanced democracies. The use of legal tools and public pressure to influence interest rate decisions breaks a consensus built up over decades, according to which the independence of central banks was a functional condition for macroeconomic stability. The case of Powell – still chairman of the Fed – is relevant not only because of its exceptional nature, but also because it introduces the logic of personal punishment as a disciplinary mechanism. In this sense, the discussion ceases to be technical and becomes structural: if politics can directly interfere in monetary governance when the electoral costs of inflation become unbearable, the credibility of the anti-inflationary anchor is weakened. The relative silence of the markets does not invalidate the risk; it merely postpones it. Because it undermines one of the sacrosanct principles of the free market. Davos should have a strong message to deliver.
This deterioration is not limited to the US. The pressure on the Fed acts as a signal to governments with high levels of debt and limited fiscal room for manoeuvre. In Europe, Japan and emerging economies, the temptation to subordinate monetary policy to budgetary imperatives becomes more visible when the world’s most influential central bank is subject to political intimidation. The systemic risk is not immediate runaway inflation, but the normalisation of interference. If central banks come to be perceived as extensions of the executive branch, the delicate balance between expectations, fiscal discipline and financial stability is disrupted. History shows that regaining monetary credibility is always more costly than losing it. That is why precedent matters more than the episode itself: once independence ceases to be an unquestionable principle and becomes a negotiable variable, the system enters a zone of structural vulnerability that is difficult to reverse.
Three lessons from monetary history
- Political pressure on monetary policy reduces decision-making horizons and shortens the economic cycle.
- The credibility of central banks depends more on informal rules than on legal frameworks.
- Turning inflation into an electoral tool reintroduces risks that democracies believed had been overcome.
More tariffs, less Europe, another collision with the free market
Greenland has been the new trigger that has caused smoke to come out of the sawed-off shotgun with which Donald Trump fires his tariffs at the rest of the planet. Or, to put it another way: proof that the US president is using the economy to force geopolitical decisions and strain European unity. His decision to impose tariffs on European partners who support Denmark in defending Greenland – raising them to 25% – transforms a territorial dispute into a transatlantic structural conflict. Trade policy is no longer an economic instrument but has become a weapon of coercion and disruption of globalisation. It punishes the solidarity of the EU framework and seeks to introduce immediate costs for its collective actions. Greenland thus becomes the catalyst for a more profound change. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the US is openly threatening NATO allies for participating in a defensive mission within the Atlantic space itself. The European reaction of closed support for Copenhagen, with symbolic military deployments and accelerated diplomatic coordination, suggests that the logic of automatic dependence is beginning to crack.
This Trumpist manoeuvre fits in with a broader strategy aimed at fragmenting both the EU and NATO. By applying tariffs selectively and making their withdrawal conditional on political concessions, the White House seeks to weaken the logic of blocs and reopen asymmetric bilateral negotiations. However, the effect may be the opposite, because Greenland has accelerated a latent debate about the extent to which Europe can continue to outsource its security and accept trade vulnerabilities in the face of an unpredictable partner. European military reinforcement in the Arctic and the questioning of recent trade agreements indicate that the political cost of yielding to pressure is beginning to outweigh that of resisting it. In this sense, Trump’s offensive not only strains transatlantic relations, but also contributes to consolidating an agenda of strategic autonomy that reconfigures the internal European balance.
The new transatlantic roadmap:
- The use of tariffs as a political sanction redefines the relationship between allies.
- The 25% threat accelerates coordinated responses rather than national divisions.
- Greenland becomes a symbol of the end of European strategic dependence.
