US President Donald Trump has taken aim at 'perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse' and challenged world leaders to be more optimistic, writes BevanShields
Trump's speech at the Swiss ski resort of Davos contained little of the criticism he levelled at China and other countries during his last address in 2018. Some European leaders had been bracing for the President to turn his sights on the continent following skirmishes over French plans to impose a tax on American digital giants and punitive US tariffs on EU exports.
But he did challenge Europe's globalist leanings, arguing America's economic boom proved nationalism provided better opportunities for the working class."A nation's highest duty is to its own citizens," Trump said."Honouring this truth is the only way to build faith and confidence in the market system. "Only when governments put their own citizens first will people be fully invested in their national futures." As Trump spoke in Davos, Democrats were preparing to begin the first day of the President's impeachment trial in the US Senate. The President, who will use the strong American economy as a platform for seeking a second term at presidential elections in November, claimed his country was "in an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen before". Climate change is a dominant theme at the Davos forum and the US is under particular scrutiny given its impending withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.Bloomberg Trump's criticism of "predictions of the apocalypse" appeared to be a swipe at Thunberg, the young Swedish climate activist who headlined a section of the summit titled, 'Averting a climate apocalypse'. Trump talked up America's green credentials and pledged to join a global initiative to plant one trillion trees.Thunberg said the world was not moving fast enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "Planting trees is good, of course, but it’s nowhere near enough of what needs to be done, and it cannot replace real mitigation or rewilding nature," she said. "From a sustainability perspective, the right, the left as well as the centre have all failed. No political ideology or economic structure has been able to tackle the climate and environmental emergency and create a cohesive and sustainable world. Because, in case you haven’t noticed, that world is currently on fire."
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