Down the promenade from Ukraine House, the U.S. pavilion is the hottest ticket in town, with long lines outside and delegates being turned away from the small non-denominational church playing host to U.S. speakers this week.
At the opening ceremony Monday afternoon, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — who recently said Europe is too weak to guarantee Greenland’s security — called on other countries to follow Donald Trump’s agenda.
“I’m here to spread the message that America First does not mean America alone,” he said, under a stone half-dome lit up in MAGA red. “We invite friends, and potential friends, to follow the president’s lead for global prosperity, peace, and a restored international order based on fair trade and balanced trade.”
Speaking at the conference center, where attendees were serenaded by multi-Grammy award-winning artist Jon Batiste at the WEF’s opening concert, Alain Berset, the secretary-general of the Council of Europe, offered a philosophical take.
Trump’s Greenland moves are “just adding a new complicated issue” to the Davos agenda, he said. The situation is “unpredictable” with people “not exactly understanding what will be achieved and who wants what.”
As for the speech Trump is expected to deliver on Wednesday, Berset noted that the U.S. president’s previous interventions at Davos had been “kind of positive and polite.”
This time around, “let us be surprised, I hope positively, with what will happen,” he added. “If not, in any case, we need in Europe to work for ourselves and to define together what we want to achieve.”