President Donald Trump on Tuesday returned to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland for the second time since taking office with a speech that took credit for the strong U.S. economy, criticized climate activists, and doubled down on his "America First" vision.
"The American Dream is back — bigger, better, and stronger than ever before," Trump said. "No one is benefitting more than America's middle class."
The address kicked off the global economic gathering, which marked its 50th anniversary this year. It also came just hours before Trump's impeachment hearing was set to begin back on Capitol Hill.
The president listed off positive economic trends in the U.S., such as historically low unemployment and a rising stock market. Trump made the case that his administration has played a central role in bringing on the economic turn, even as the speech praised the American free-market system and denounced "radical socialists."
"I knew that if we unleashed the potential of our people, if we cut taxes, slashed regulations … fixed broken trade deals, and fully tapped American energy, that prosperity would come thundering back at a record speed," Trump said.
Trump also touted the passing of the Phase One trade deal with China and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement last week.
"These agreements represent a new model of trade for the 21st century, agreements that are fair, reciprocal, and prioritize the needs of workers and families," he said.
The speech hewed to Trump's more populist side as it progressed, taking a moment to namecheck working-class concerns like higher wages and the standard of living.
"For the first time in decades, we're no longer simply concentrating wealth in the hands of the few. We're concentrating and creating the most inclusive economy ever to exist," Trump said.
"Celebrating the dignity of work is a fundamental pillar of our agenda. This is a blue-collar boom," he added.
Amid the cheerleading, Trump took a moment to knock the Federal Reserve, saying that the central bank "has raised rates too fast and lowered them too slowly."
The president was at his most oppositional when discussing climate change, which has become the cause célèbre of this year's World Economic Forum. Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg, who has feuded with Trump on Twitter, spoke in a session entitled "Averting a Climate Apocalypse."
While not specifically discrediting climate change, Trump called on the world to "reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse." They are the "heirs to yesterday's foolish fortune tellers," he added, and stand in a long line of "alarmists" who in the past have overstated global problems such as overpopulation and mass starvation.
For Trump, a lifelong denizen of the business world, the free market will just have to work it out.
"In America, we understand what the pessimists refuse to see, that a growing and vibrant market economy focused on the future lifts the human spirit and excites the creativity strong enough to overcome any challenge, any challenge by far," he said.
