Organizers for the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland, convinced President Donald Trump to attend for the first time in six years by assuring him that the program would not focus too heavily on “woke” topics.
As a condition for Trump’s participation, administration officials asked the event’s organizers to eliminate or scale back discussions about female empowerment, diversity, the green energy transition, climate change, and financing for international development, the Financial Times reported.
Despite those topics being central themes of the last few editions of Davos, the WEF offered the administration the needed “reassurances” that they wouldn’t feature prominently at the January 2026 gathering of high-level government and business leaders.
A source told the FT, “The U.S. side wanted to make sure Trump’s appearance at the elite, progressive event would still play well with his MAGA base,” many of whom view Davos as part of an elite, globalist plot to rule the world.
The administration has made similar demands as a condition of Trump participating in other global forums, another source said.
“The world would benefit from adopting America’s focus on economic security, secure borders, and peace through strength over woke ideology,” a White House spokesperson told the FT.
The Daily Beast has also reached out for comment.
A spokesperson for the WEF told the paper that “no government influences our editorial interdependence or the agenda of our meetings.”
“We select meeting themes and topics based on global relevance,” the organization said.
Officials representing heads of state often have “routine” talks about the program for the invitation-only event, another source said.
The theme for this year’s program is “A Spirit of Dialogue,” with discussions centered around five themes: cooperating in a more contested world, unlocking new sources of growth, investing in people, deploying innovation responsibly, and building prosperity “within planetary boundaries”—which sounds suspiciously like a euphemism for the energy transition.
The president has adopted a broad use of the term “woke” to encompass anything he doesn’t personally support.
His administration abandoned the U.S. government’s longstanding, bipartisan commitment to international development and defunded efforts to promote U.S. values, including the free flow of information.
Those efforts have traditionally been seen as vital forms of soft power for maintaining American influence and promoting stability around the world.
Trump has also attempted to roll back Biden-era investments in the energy transition that non-partisan analysts said would offer major economic benefits.
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act was projected to create 1.5 million new jobs, the Department of Energy found, and reduce the federal deficit by almost $2 trillion in the long run, according to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Instead, Trump’s economic policies—including his sweeping tariffs on products from dozens of U.S. trading partners—have led to the worst jobs crisis in two decades.
His “big beautiful” spending bill is also expected to raise the deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found.
Last year, Trump appeared at the Davos conference virtually to warn business leaders attending the summit that if they didn’t make their products in the U.S., they would face punishing tariffs.
But the duties—a type of import tax paid by American businesses, which must eat the higher costs or pass them along to consumers—have also raised the price of domestic manufacturing for companies that rely on components created abroad.
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