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SCMP Reporters

This live blog has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Get faster notifications on the latest updates by downloading our app.
US President Donald Trump made his “America first” agenda clear in his address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Monday.
In a lengthy speech and Q&A session, the returning leader demanded that Nato up its membership payments to 5 per cent of GDP, warned that firms that did not manufacture in the US would face tariffs, complained about “unfair” treatment for American businesses in the EU, spoke enthusiastically about meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and said he would call on China’s President Xi Jinping to help end the war in Ukraine.
Read on to see how Trump’s speech unfolded in real time.


This live blog has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Get faster notifications on the latest updates by downloading our app.
More from our reporting
– China directs funds to stabilise stock market amid Trump tariff threats
– Trump’s America first trade policy: US-China 2020 deal is again under scrutiny
Reporting by Kawala Xie, Khushboo Razdan, Robert Delaney and Mark Magnier


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Putin says he is ready for talks with ‘smart’ Trump on Ukraine

Trump wants China to join nuclear arms talks with US and Russia. Will Beijing listen?

World Economic Forum

Trump in Davos: call for Xi to help stop Ukraine war, end trade deficits – as it happened

Trump is shown on screens as he addresses the WEF via remote connection. Photo: EPA-EFE

Trump is shown on screens as he addresses the WEF via remote connection. Photo: Keystone via AP

News

Diplomacy

The returning US leader also wants more money from Nato members, threatened Canada tariffs and talked about the AI race with China


The returning US leader also wants more money from Nato members, threatened Canada tariffs and talked about the AI race with China.


Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s China policy

US-China relations

US-China relations: the Asian angle

China

Switzerland

United States

China trade

Trade

Energy

US-China decoupling

US-China trade war

US-China trade war: All stories

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This year’s Davos runs from January 20 to 24. Participants include 50 heads of state and over 1,600 business leaders, including 900 of the world’s top CEOs, according to the World Economic Forum.
The forum’s theme this year is “collaboration for the intelligent age”. Discussion focus on five key issues facing the global economy: reimagining growth, industries in the intelligent age, investing in people, safeguarding the planet and rebuilding trust.
Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez are among the government heads attending.
Among the notable CEOs from financial institutions are Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Colm Kelleher of UBS and Bill Winters of Standard Chartered.
Tech giants bypassing Davos: Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Sam Altman of OpenAI. Both instead attended Trump’s inauguration on Monday.



Who’s attending Davos and what they’re discussing

Trump has attended Davos twice before, both in person and during his first term: in 2018 and in 2020, right before Covid-19 became a global pandemic.
In 2020, Trump bragged about the “phase-one” trade deal he reached with China days before the Davos forum.
“Our relationship with China, right now, has probably never been better … My relationship with President Xi is an extraordinary one. He’s for China; I’m for the US. But other than that, we love each other,” he said at the time.
The phase-one deal required China buy an additional US$200 billion of American goods and services in a two-year period to shrink the large trade deficit between the two nations.
But Beijing reportedly fell well short of the target, in part because pandemic-related disruptions hampered trade.
On Monday, Trump directed the US trade representative to investigate whether China acted “in accordance” with the deal, signalling a possible revival of trade talks between the two nations.


Trump’s past Davos remarks

Trump’s speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos will be followed by an in-depth question-and-answer session moderated by the forum’s president Børge Brende.
In addition to Brende, several influential business leaders, including Blackstone chief executive Stephen Schwarzman and Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan, are expected to participate, potentially asking questions and engaging in the discussion.


Trump to take questions after his speech

In an apparent message to Trump during her speech in Davos on Tuesday, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU wants to “engage early” and is “ready to negotiate” with the US amid Trump’s threatened tariffs, adding that trade between the two markets is very interconnected.
Von der Leyen, who has clashed with Trump on issues ranging from climate to Nato spending, reportedly had difficulty securing a meeting with Trump following his re-election in November.
Trump during his campaign threatened to impose a 10 per cent universal tariff on imports from all nations. On Tuesday, he signalled that tariffs targeted at Europe were still in play.
“The European Union is very, very bad to us,” Trump said, referring to the EU’s trade surplus with the US. “So they’re going to be in for tariffs. It’s the only way … you’re going to get fairness.”
Europe’s trade surplus with the US stood at €158 billion (US$164 billion) in 2023, according to the EU Commission.
However, von der Leyen said in Davos that the EU was open to trade “with anyone”.
The bloc has been working to become “Trump-proof”, reaching a landmark free-trade deal with Latin American countries in December. China is also actively seeking to improve its relations with the bloc upon Trump’s return.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Davos on Tuesday vowed to defend free trade in the face of Trump’s tariff threats, as his country faces a shrinking economy.


EU reaction to Trump’s return at Davos

Ding, who is the Chinese government’s sixth-ranking official and tasked with overseeing the country’s tech policy, delivered a speech at the forum on Tuesday, a day after Trump’s inauguration.
Without mentioning the US, Ding warned of a trade war, which he said has “no winners”, adding that “protectionism leads nowhere”.
A day after Ding’s remarks, Trump said he was considering imposing a 10 per cent tariff on Chinese imports from February 1. Trump said the move would be a response to the flow of fentanyl, responsible for thousands of deaths in the US annually.
The US has long accused Chinese chemical companies of producing fentanyl precursors that trade globally.
Ding said China would stick to reform and opening up as well as address foreign investors’ concerns about the lack of a level playing field amid increasing headwinds the world’s No 2 economy faces domestically and externally.
He further vowed China would stay committed to a green transition, an area where Beijing leads Washington. For his part, Trump on his first day back in office scrapped the US clean-energy policies touted by his predecessor, Joe Biden.
On AI, Ding warned it must be properly handled to avoid a “Pandora’s box” of uncontrollable risk, while Trump rescinded Biden’s order to regulate AI risks, arguing it stymied American innovation.
On Tuesday, Ding met Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and other heavyweight executives for a private lunch, Reuters reported.
Some analysts see Schwarzman as an ideal candidate to serve as a “backchannel” between Trump and the Chinese government. The Blackstone CEO has been a key adviser to Trump while maintaining deep financial investments in China.



Ding Xuexiang’s cautionary words

Trump announced on his inauguration day that the US would leave the Paris Agreement, the 2015 climate treaty aiming to slow global warming and keep the rise in global surface temperature below degrees Centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
A climate-change sceptic, Trump pulled the US out of the treaty in his first term. His presidential successor, Joe Biden, had the US rejoin in 2021.
On Friday, the US Federal Reserve withdrew from a global central bank coalition studying climate risks to the financial system.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen criticised Trump’s move at Davos, calling the 2015 accord “the best hope for all humanity” and vowing that Europe would stay the course to stop global warming.


Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

As trade and tariffs take centre stage ahead of Trump’s address to the World Economic Forum, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers has introduced a bill seeking to revoke China’s permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status.
The status is a legal designation in the US for free trade with a foreign state, and was granted to China in 2000.
This morning, Representative John Moolenaar, the Michigan Republican who chairs the House select committee on China, along with Representative Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat, unveiled their Restoring Trade Fairness Act.
The bill follows Trump’s recent executive order, which instructs the commerce secretary and the US trade representative to assess legislative proposals regarding the future of PNTR with China.


US lawmakers introduce bill to revoke China’s trade designation

Trump opens his speech to more than 3,000 political and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, declaring that under his leadership, “the entire planet will be more peaceful”.
He says, “Our nation will soon be stronger, wealthier, and more united than ever, with this momentum creating a more peaceful and prosperous world for all”.



Trump asserts ‘entire planet will be more peaceful’

Trump starts his speech by attacking his predecessor Joe Biden’s economic policies, which he said were responsible for “high inflation” in the United States.
He also attacks Biden’s green-energy policies. Trump declared a “national energy emergency” on Monday, ending the Green New Deal and the EV initiative put forward by Biden.
“I terminated the ridiculous and incredibly wasteful ‘green new deal’. I call it the ‘green new scam’. Withdrew from the … insane and costly electric vehicle mandate, we’re going to let people buy the car they want to buy,” he says.


Trump attacks Biden’s economic policies

Trump is talking about the AI investment deal he announced on Tuesday.
In the announcement, he promised investments worth up to US$500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence by a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.
The joint venture, called Stargate, would see the three companies initially invest a combined US$100 billion, and could expand to US$500 billion over the next four years. The money would go towards the creation of data centres – massive buildings full of servers delivering computing power.
Trump’s executive orders on Monday to secure American “dominance” in energy would also allow the US to rapidly expand electricity projects to power these data centres in its AI race with China.
Also on Monday, Trump rescinded his predecessor Joe Biden’s order to regulate AI risks, saying it stymied American innovation.
The US and China have been locked in a fierce stand-off for global tech supremacy, with policymakers in both countries convinced that an edge on this front is key to building up their militaries and prevailing in a long-term competition to be determined by AI and quantum computing capabilities.


Trump’s AI ambition

Trump sends a clear message to multinational businesses: move your production to the US or face tariffs.
“My message to every business in the world is very simple: come make your product in America, and we will give you among the lowest taxes of any nation on Earth,” he says.
He adds, “If you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then very simply, you will have to pay a tariff – differing amounts, but a tariff which will direct hundreds of billions of dollars, and even trillions of dollars, into our treasury to strengthen our economy and pay down debt.
“Under the Trump administration, there will be no better place on Earth to create jobs, build factories, or grow a company than right here in the good old USA.”



Trump warns businesses: manufacture in US or face consequences

In his remarks, Trump demands Nato allies to increase their defence spending to 5 per cent.
“I’m also going to ask all Nato nations to increase defence of GDP, which is what it should have been years ago,” he adds.
“It was only at 2 per cent and most nations didn’t pay until I came along. I insisted that they pay, and they did, because the United States was really paying the difference at that time. And it’s unfair to the United States.”


Nato allies must pay more for defence: Trump

Describing Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a “fantastic guy”, Trump stated he would be asking the country to “bring down the cost of oil”.
“I’m also going to ask Saudi Arabia and Opec to bring down the cost of oil. He’s got to bring it down, which, frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t do before the election,” Trump added.



Trump calls Saudi crown prince ‘fantastic guy’, says he’ll ask OPEC to lower oil prices

Trump says “it’s time to end” the Ukraine war.
“Our efforts to secure a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine are now hopefully underway. It’s so important to get that done. That is an absolute killing field. Millions of soldiers are being killed. Nobody’s seen anything like it since World War Two,” he says.
On Wednesday, Trump warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that he would impose tariffs and sanctions on Russia and “various other participating countries” if Moscow doesn’t end its invasion of Ukraine.
“I’m not looking to hurt Russia. I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin,” Trump wrote on social media.
“We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - and the easy way is always better,” he added.
During his campaign, Trump said he would end the Ukraine war in a day – even before taking office. But his advisers told Reuters recently that a quick resolution would not be possible, and a peace deal could now be months away.


Trump is reported to be considering multiple peace plans presented by his cabinet picks, including terms like freezing the current battle lines and Kyiv’s bid to join Nato.
It is unclear how Russia, Ukraine or the European Union could accept such terms. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has insisted that his country join Nato, said during the Davos forum on Tuesday that Europe must be a part of shaping the terms in any peace deal.
Putin, who congratulated Trump on his inauguration on Monday, said in a message that “the most important thing is to eliminate the root causes of the crisis”.
The Russian president demanded Ukraine to “never” join Nato and for Moscow to keep the lands it has occupied in eastern Ukraine.


Trump calls for an end to Ukraine war

In response to a question from Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Trump says the European Union treats the US “very unfairly, very badly”.
“We are going to do something about it,” the president says.
“From the standpoint of America, the EU treats us very, very unfairly, very badly,” Trump adds, citing “large taxes”.
“One, they don’t take our farm products, and they don’t take our cars, yet they sell cars to us by the millions.”
Trump also says the EU “won US$15 or US$16 billion from Apple. They won billions from Google. I think they’re after Facebook for billions and billions”.
“These are American companies, whether you like them or not, they’re American companies, and they shouldn’t be doing that.”


EU treats American companies ‘very unfairly’: Trump

Right before his speech at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, Trump held a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, his first with a foreign leader since taking office on Monday.
“The two leaders discussed efforts to bring stability to the Middle East, bolster regional security and combat terrorism,” the White House said in a statement.
“They also talked about Saudi Arabia’s international economic ambitions over the next four years as well as trade and other opportunities to enhance the mutual prosperity of the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
In the call, the crown prince said Saudi Arabia wanted to invest US$600 billion in the US over the next four years.


Pre-Davos, Trump’s first foreign call goes to Saudi crown prince

Trump says the US will guarantee energy supplies to Europe, which has faced an energy crisis since the start of the Ukraine war.
Trump also says he will rapidly approve power generation projects in the US to fuel its artificial intelligence race with China.
“It’ll be very competitive with China,” he says.
Among his first executive orders on Monday, Trump announced a “national energy emergency” with sweeping actions to boost fossil fuel – reversing his predecessor Joe Biden’s clean-energy policies, including a push for electric vehicles and wind power.
Trump’s reversals could significantly affect global energy dynamics, as China is leading in green energy transition and Europe’s energy security is still at risk with the prolonged Ukraine war affecting supply.
Trump’s rollback on EVs is expected to complicate the US demand for critical minerals such as lithium - a key component for battery making - and to undermine Biden’s strategy of working with allies to reduce China’s dominance in this field. China produces the largest global share of EVs and rare earth materials.
Trump’s goal to enlarge liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, however, will continue to see the EU rely heavily on the US.
The US is already the EU’s biggest LNG exporter after the bloc slashed imports from Russia following the start of the Ukraine war.



Trump assures energy supplies to Europe and discusses AI race with China

As Trump reiterates a pledge to reduce inflation and cut business taxes to as low as 15 per cent, he says “many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank, and that included a place called Bank of America”.
“I hope you’re going to open your banks to conservatives because what you’re doing is wrong,” he tells Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan at Davos.
Moynihan does not acknowledge Trump’s remarks, instead thanking him for “getting” the 2026 football World Cup event for the US. The successful bid to host – made in cooperation with Canada and Mexico – was made during Trump’s first term, in 2017. It will take place across all three countries.


Trump repeats pledge to cut taxes, blasts banks for spurning conservatives

Trump says he wants to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin “soon”.
“I really would like to be able to meet with President Putin soon and get that war ended.
“And that’s not from the standpoint of economy or something else. It’s from the standpoint of millions of lives are being wasted. Beautiful young people are being shot in the battlefield.”



Trump says he would like to meet with Putin ‘soon’

Trump says Chinese President Xi Jinping called him, describing the phone call as “very good” and saying the two leaders share a “very good relationship”.
“We just want a level playing field. We don’t want to take advantage. We’ve been having massive deficits with China,” he adds, calling the deficits “ridiculous”.
“It’s just an unfair relationship. And we have to make it fair. We don’t have to make it phenomenal. We just have to make it a fair relationship. Right now, it’s not a fair relationship.”
“We look forward to doing very well with China and getting along with China,” he says.



Trump looking forward to ‘doing well with China’

Trump says he will work with China to end the Ukraine war, saying Beijing has “a great deal of power over the situation”.
“We’ll work with them,” Trump says.
The US and Europe have often asked Beijing to exert influence on Moscow, citing Chinese President Xi Jinping’s relationship with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Beijing has positioned itself as a peacemaker for the Ukraine war, putting forward a joint consensus with Brazil calling for a ceasefire and early negotiations.
But China has also been harshly criticised by the West for allegedly supplying dual-use goods to Russia that evade sanctions and enable Moscow’s war in Ukraine.


Trump says he will work with China to end the Ukraine war

Trump criticises Canada, pointing to a “tremendous deficit” the US has with its neighbour.
“We don’t need them to make our cars and they make a lot of them. We don’t need their lumber because we have our own forests … We don’t need their oil and gas. We have more than anybody,” he says.



US doesn’t need Canada’s oil, lumber or cars: Trump

Trump says he has discussed “denuclearisation” with Russia and China, suggesting the two are open to cutting back on nuclear arms.
“We were talking about denuclearisation,” he adds. “China would have come along.”
“I can tell you that President [Vladimir] Putin wanted to do it. He and I wanted to do it. We had a good conversation with China. They would have been involved and that would have been an unbelievable thing for the planet.”


Trump claims Russia and China want to reduce nuclear arms

That’s all for our blog. Please stay tuned to the SCMP homepage for more detailed coverage of some of the most important comments that Trump made at Davos and his administration’s policies more broadly as they develop.


The blog is closed, but coverage continues