‘He’s a Serious Political Force’: WEF Elites Discuss Ways to ‘Trump-Proof’ Economies

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald J. Trump speaks during a campaign event in Concord, N.H., on Jan. 19, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

“Trump-proofing” global economies can be “very difficult” and may require Europe to boost their competitiveness and be “strong at home,” various global leaders said at the recently concluded World Economic Forum (WEF).

During “The Global Economic Outlook” panel on Friday, Bloomberg host Francine Lacqua asked members how they should “Trump-proof” their economies to prepare for President Trump winning a second term in the White House. “If somebody has a way to do that, I think they should patent it and probably sell it to somebody else,” said David Rubenstein, the co-founder of the Carlyle Group, one of the biggest private equity firms in the world. This would be “very difficult to do,” he added.

Germany’s Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner replied that Europe “should prepare ourselves for a possible second term for Donald Trump by fostering our European competitiveness.”

“Doing our homework is the best preparation for a possible second term of Donald Trump. And this includes our capabilities to defend ourselves. Being an attractive partner on eye level, when it comes to the economic situation and when it comes to a fair burden sharing under the roof of NATO, is the best we can do to be in a good partnership with the United States.”

If Europe is attractive to the United States, “then it doesn’t matter which administration” they would have to deal with,” he stated.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said that “the best defense, if that’s the way we want to look at it, is attack. And to attack properly, you need to be strong at home. So, being strong means having a strong, deep market, having a real single market.”

Mr. Rubenstein also explained why he thinks President Trump is going strong in the United States. He pointed out that despite being indicted four times, with 91 counts on various indictments, the former president’s popularity has not waned.

Instead, it has soared to a point where President Trump has a “reasonably good chance of locking up the Republican nomination by March, which is earlier than any contested presidential candidate has been able to lock up the Republican nomination.”

“If he is nominated, it’d be the first time ever that a Republican party has nominated the same person three times in a row. He clearly has a following that many of the analysts missed, and I don’t think any of the court cases are likely to change his momentum,” Mr. Rubenstein said.

“So, I think people should recognize that he’s a serious political force and should not discount the fact that he could well be elected again, despite the fact that many people in Europe, where we are now, are not really his biggest fans.”

In the last two presidential elections, 45 out of the 50 states voted “exactly the same way,” he said. The five states that voted differently are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost all five states, and President Trump won the race. And in 2020, President Joe Biden won the five states and went on to secure the election.

“So, if everything will get down to those five states, and right now, if the election were held today, it would be difficult to see how Trump would lose that election today,” Mr. Rubenstein said. “Right now, Donald Trump is ahead in all five of those states.”

Anti-Globalism Trump, Popularity Among Americans

WEF panel comments come as a former event speaker recently insisted that President Trump coming back to power would be bad news for globalists.

Ten years ago, there was a “global order, the liberal order,” which created the “most peaceful era in human history,” Israeli historian and author Yuval Noah Harari said in a Jan. 11 interview with “The Diary of a CEO” podcast.

However, “this order was repeatedly attacked, not only from outside, from forces like Russia or North Korea or Iran that never accepted this order, but also from the inside, even from the United States, which was the architect to a large extent of this order, with the election of Donald Trump, which says, ‘I don’t care about any kind of global order, I’d only care about my own nation.’”

If President Trump is again elected, it will likely be “the death blow to what remains of the global order,” Mr. Harari said. “And he says it, and he says it openly.” ‘

During a rally in Michigan last year, President Trump promised to “demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists.”

A recent poll by ABC News/Ipsos found that President Trump enjoys far greater popularity among his party members than President Biden has with his party’s supporters.

Among the Republican-leaning respondents, 72 percent said they would be satisfied with President Trump being their party’s nominee for the 2024 presidential race. In contrast, only 57 percent of Democrat-leaning respondents said they would be satisfied with President Biden being their nominee.

Commenting on President Trump’s popularity with Americans, TV personality Piers Morgan said in a Jan. 20 interview with Fox that even as “charge after charge after charge has come at him, he has got stronger.”

“The polling for him has improved because even Republicans that don’t really like Donald Trump can see that there is a witch hunt element to all this, that the Democrats are trying to kill him off. But by doing so, they’re making him more popular. And Donald Trump can feel that.”

“I think he’s pretty much got the nomination in the bag. I think he’s going to win in New Hampshire and South Carolina quite comfortably. I think this is all over, probably before Super Tuesday. And then, honestly, who would put money right now on Donald Trump not beating Joe Biden when Joe Biden can barely string a sentence together and can barely stand on his own two feet?”