Live from Davos: The Real Conversations Around Trump's Return
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The golden age of America begins right now. I will very simply put America first. ♪♪

Welcome to Trumponomics, the Bloomberg podcast that looks at the economic world of Donald Trump, how he's already shaped the global economy and what on earth is going to happen next. I'm Stephanie Flarners, Head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg, and this week we're recording Trumponomics.

in the Swiss Alps, in the Bloomberg Davos House at the World Economic Forum. And as we speak, we're looking at pictures from Washington. We're recording on Monday and the second inauguration of Donald Trump is getting underway. So we did think it was fitting, given the timing, that in this episode we asked the question, is Davos learning the art of the deal?

Not so long ago, the billionaires, the heads of state, the tech moguls who come here every January for the World Economic Forum, they thought they were done with Donald Trump. And now they seem to be pretty meekly falling into line. I'm super fired up for the future. It's going to be very exciting. As the president said, we're going to have a golden age. I'm actually very optimistic this time. He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation.

And if I can help him do that, I'm going to help him. I mean, seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag, it's like hard to not get kind of emotional about that spirit. And I'm wondering what the implications are for everyone else and for markets, for money, for investors, for the economy.

for the broader world. And I've got a stellar cast here to discuss these issues. Bloomberg's editor-in-chief, John Micklethwaite. I'm very glad that you made it this year. You were too, you were... Ill. You were ill last year. And lots of us had to pretend to be you, which didn't go well at all. We have Jenny Leonard, White House reporter, who focuses on international economic issues and has been the first to an awful lot of trade stories and policies ever since she came to Bloomberg.

And Brad Stone, who's now editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, but before that was senior executive editor for global technology at Bloomberg News and the author of four books very relevant to our discussions today, including Amazon Unbound.

Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire. Looking around, and it was written up rather nicely in an introductory story that Bloomberg News wrote, you'd have to say the movers and shakers descending on the World Economic Forum here in Davos this week have already been paying their dues to the new president, realigning their priorities to better fit his plans.

somewhat unreconstructed America first agenda. We had a great quote from Lloyd Blankvine, the former head of Goldman Sachs. He said he was reminded of what happened when Napoleon escaped from Elba and the French newspapers changed their tune pretty dramatically in 1815. They started off, in fact, Le Moniteur,

started off characterising Napoleon as a monster, but by the time he got close to Paris, they announced that his majesty was arriving. And it definitely has sort of felt a bit like that. And of course, Donald Trump himself would love the comparison with Napoleon. So let me start with you, Brad, because there has been so much focus on how Silicon Valley has sort of turned on a dime with this president and some of the key figures like Mark Zuckerberg in particular. But

Maybe what's changed is just they've been able to show their true colors. Everything has changed. Let's go back eight years ago and all the CEOs went to the White House looking like they had some bad fish the night before. And there was Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos and Sheryl Sandberg. Zuckerberg didn't even go. Elon didn't go and then withdrew from the presidential council a couple of weeks later when Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords.

And so what happened? I mean, they felt unjustly persecuted during the Biden years, either through the antitrust agenda or the regulation of crypto, maybe a little bit of the anti-tech mood in the media. And they have come out of the last four years

in some ways, MAGA. And it's startling. But look, credit Trump a little bit. He opened the tent large enough to make room for all the tech leaders. And they see a kind of common cause with Trump on crypto, on antitrust,

on, Mark Andreessen calls it, raising the tech flag, building, acquiring, investing. And I think, you know, there's optimism, but there's also opportunity. And they know that by cozying up to Trump and contributing to the inauguration and being up there in the dais today, that that is good for business. I mean, you make the point, though, that, you know, they have shifted their

in the last eight years. It's not just that they're sort of suddenly waking up to the reality of a second Trump term. So how much were you surprised by any of what's happened in the last few years? Absolutely shocked because, you know, there did seem to be a sense of legitimate resistance eight years ago, but the world has changed.

And Trump, as I said, to his credit, he's evolved. Now, there's not a lot of consistency. I mean, he was the one who raised the idea of banning TikTok and has just given it a reprieve. He was anti-crypto and just launched the Trump coin and the Melania coin to great enrichment of the family. So he's seeing some of the political and, frankly, the financial opportunities of being Big Trump, of being Big Tech. Big Trump, I think. Well, that might be even more appropriate. Yeah.

Obviously, financially, and that's a big part of all the discussions around here, we have seen a lot of betting on and moving of money in line with the Trump agenda. Not just Bitcoin, but price of oil, growth stocks, the dollar, they've all gone up by about 8%. I was looking at it this morning since Donald Trump was elected. And when I look at what the impact has already been on countries like the UK, you know,

the big increase in bond yield that's gone with this, you know, it feels like already before he's done anything, any country with underlying weaknesses, any government with underlying weaknesses is having those exacerbated or highlighted just by the fact of the Trump agenda.

and they're on the back foot. How would you say the world has changed, and particularly the sort of foreign policy and financial markets? What Brad said about tech is actually quite true of business in general and not just linked to Trump. I mean, I think if you look around the world compared with, say, eight years ago,

Business people everywhere sense both more fear and more opportunity in their relations with government. The idea, when I first started coming to Davos, that business was this wonderful thing that existed outside the realms of government, and it was all about kind of doing good and all that sort of stuff. Now, business people realise that you can both get clobbered by government, and that applies from Trump, but it also applies to the European Union and lots of other places, and

But also it's a chance for enrichment as TikTok is suddenly discovering and lots of other people, the people in the Midwest now will be thinking, well, maybe we can make money out of tariffs if they come our way. There'll be people around here thinking about different things that they might be able to get if Europe puts up bigger barriers and so on. So there's both kind of fear and greed are driving business and government together, I think generally. But on the specific question you said, you can see everywhere. Britain has suddenly got

sort of freaked out by a kind of semi-Liz Truss moment. You can argue how much of this is Rachel Reeves fault also, you know, and how much of it is just the simple fact that Trump has arrived and everything has been thrown into greater kind of impact, either good or bad. And I think that's almost the way to look at Trump at the moment. He's sort of throwing every weakness or every strength is somehow being massively exaggerated. Trump

Trump is always about exaggerating. And when it comes to the UK, I mean, if you look at actually the sort of gap in borrowing costs between the UK and the US has barely moved. And yet all of the pressure, the pressure in the UK has all been on the Chancellor for reasons that sort of predate that change. Well, I want to...

In a little bit. A good defence of regime release. I'm just looking at the spread, John, as you'd expect any Bloomberg reporter to do. We will get on to some of these kind of broader impacts of basic things like the cost of money actually going up, along with all the good news. But Jenny, obviously...

A lot of the big moves we've seen have been trying to game out how serious Donald Trump is on his agenda for tariffs, what it will mean for different aspects of the global economy and different companies. So since you're usually the first to find out these things, what's your sense so far?

Well, I would also say Washington has seen a big shift since the last Trump term on this. First of all, they're all accepting the outcome that he's president again. But we also see both parties coming together, wanting to do things together, which I think eight years ago, we wouldn't have imagined them talking about, oh, we need to actually do something on the border because that played into the election outcome. Maybe Trump has a point here on trade, on tariffs.

They're talking about tariffs in a very different way than eight years ago. The GOP that's in the Congress right now, I think, has many more Trump allies than they did traditional free trade Republicans eight years ago. You know, we see TikTok. TikTok is a massive shift from a bipartisan, massively bipartisan legislation that passed saying this is a national security threat. It has to be banned.

all of a sudden, Mike Walsh, the incoming national security advisor, says, this is a great app. I think I wish I had it on my phone. That kind of shift is what we're seeing right now. Doge is another example. This is all things that we're seeing right now, and I think when the rubber meets the road, we're going to see if this actually sticks. I'm a little bit skeptical that everyone in the Republican Party will go along with broad global tariffs hitting every country, every import. I also think...

We've seen this from spending discussions in Washington. When it comes to cutting your base in your district or whatever project you care about, you know, they might throw a fit. And I think that we'll see when the rubber meets the road if they're actually...

that far along in that shift. Well, we have had, and you've been involved with some of them, I mean, there have already been sort of competing narratives coming out of the administration, precisely on tariffs, because you have a sort of grown up view, supposedly, that says, oh, they're going to be targeted. There was a Washington Post story that talked about that. And then quite a lot of pushback that seems to have come from even from Donald Trump himself. Yes.

We, I will say, will probably see a repeat of what we saw eight years ago on the economic front and the battle on the inside on tariffs. We have two camps, largely, even though Scott Besson and Howard Lutnick, I think, are talking about tariffs now in a way that are a little bit more in line with the hawks than Steven Mnuchin maybe did eight years ago as his treasury secretary. But we had reported that there is an effort underway to

stage the tariffs to not hit every country, every import with 10%, 20%, you name it, at one time, but kind of go gradually. And the way it was described to us is this is a negotiating ploy. We open this up. Countries will come to the table. We get something out of it. But we don't cause massive inflation by hitting every good with 20%. We reported this morning that he's not

going after China the way he promised on the campaign trail. Of all the executive orders he will sign today, there's not going to be anything on tariffs. There will be no day one tariffs, even though everyone who's been following his Truth Social posts, I think we're expecting a

China tariffs for fentanyl, China tariffs for trade, Mexico-Canada tariffs, all that seems to have been put on pause for we don't know how long, but that's the state of play right now. And if you follow his public comments, but also privately is what I'm told, he has really shifted on China to a much less adversarial tone. He used to

bring up in meetings with people his grievances about Beijing. And now we see he hopped on the phone, he invited Xi Jinping to the inauguration. He's obviously not coming, but sent his vice president. He tweeted about world peace and he wants to save TikTok. And we also know that nothing in Trump world really sticks for a very long time. So this could all change tomorrow. If the hawks get in a room with the president and say,

"Hey, you know what? You really let down some of your supporters who voted for you because you promised across-the-board tariffs and you did nothing on day one.

This could sway him. I mean, what is funny is, of course, of all the things in Trump's agenda on which both parties he has united, it is an aggressive antipathy towards China. So if that's the one thing that he steps back from, it will be interesting. But, I mean, Elon... Oh, sorry, Elon. I'll take it. Elon. No need for a pay. Brad, is this all Elon? I mean, you have the...

You emphasise some of the things that the tech world would be quite happy to see the back of if they can, like the competition efforts to rein in tech. But both the control on immigration and indeed the measures against China stood to damage quite large parts of Silicon Valley or certainly not be particularly in their interests. Are they betting that Elon's going to be the Trump whisperer and...

I think we don't know, and I think you've put your finger on what will be probably the most significant divide within the Trump ruling coalition. And that's the line of thought represented by Elon and his group of tech CEOs who are now in government or advising government.

And then I guess traditional MAGA, Steve Bannon and the like. And we're already seeing clashes on issues like deportation and H-1B visas. And it will be interesting to see how it plays out. But I mean, you know, if you go back eight years ago, what we know about Trump is that he is

He can be influenced and he's quite transactional. And so when you saw the parade of CEOs like Tim Cook to the White House to carve out relief for companies like Apple, I think it often comes down to who is the loudest voice in his ear and who has he talked to most recently.

So it's a big tech will be fine. Big tech is betting they're fine. Small and medium-sized tech and other businesses are probably... I mean, it really depends. He said at one point that he thought Mark Zuckerberg should spend the rest of his life in jail, and now Zuck is at the inauguration today. Will the attitude change? Elon's interests are in some ways quite opposed to Mark's. And so if Elon does have the loudest voice in the room, maybe Mark's in a little bit of trouble.

John mentioned it at the beginning. It is kind of breathtaking, the 180 that corporate leaders seem to be doing on ESG, on a lot of their sort of net zero goals. We just saw the six largest US banks all quitting the UN-sponsored net zero alliance and

McDonald's, Walmart, they're rolling back all their DEI initiatives. Did they not mean it ever? Or is this the thing that's performative? It is incredible. I'm slightly cross with Lloyd Blankvine for using the LeMonitor thing, which I've used countless times. But I advise everyone in this room to go and look at it. It is the most incredible series of headlines that begin with the cannibal has escaped from his hideout. He will never escape the mountains.

And then it ends with the emperor has arrived in Fontainebleau with his imperial match just in 14 days. But that is pretty much what has happened. Suddenly CEOs have jumped almost immediately and you can see it just in terms of the sort of things they talk about. They are moving back from things. I mean, some of this is posturing. It's just in the same way as some of the diversity stuff maybe was posturing in one way. Now some of the retreat is the same thing. They don't want to get called out

for not taking profits as seriously as their rivals. And a lot of these things they can fiddle with just by changing the language a bit. But globally, is there going to be a divide, though? Because, I mean, you've already seen it.

We learned today, actually, that MES is not taking away all of the sort of moderating that it has outside of the US. How are big companies going to navigate that? Oh, I'm very green for the rest of the world, but I've given up on all my climate things in the US. I don't know. Brad may have different views on this, but I tend to think there are two different sort of things going on. One is the stuff to do with tech and this enormous...

increase in wealth. And if you look at throughout the history of commerce, there's always been times where industries shoot from being the people who everyone wants to be, whether you're Rockefeller or Morgan 100 years ago, to suddenly being the malefactors of great wealth. And notwithstanding the recent love-in, I think...

There is a real push to get the tech companies, which is most obvious in Europe because they're all American, but I think is generally there and it's going to have touch points. We've got a film coming out on the number of children who died because they've been pushed towards suicide videos and things like that. There is a lot of nasty stuff around the tech companies per se, and that's one issue, and we'll see what happens on that. And that's obviously slightly altered by Elon's

presence. But the other one, more generally, is business. I think on the whole, you know, most business people, there's quite a lot to gain from Trump if he does deregulate. Two big things they don't like is, one, the idea of immigration taking away workers they would need, and as Jenny was saying, on tariffs. And that will be the area. But yes, I do think there are divides there. And there will be a big divide between Europe and America. I think that's very difficult to avoid.

Have you seen, Jenny, have you seen sort of in Washington and elsewhere, anyone kind of standing up for DEI or even climate? I mean, there's a lot of support in Congress for still continuing to combat climate change. Yeah, but there's only so much you can do when you're in the minority in both houses. So everything they say kind of goes into a void. I don't see anything coming together as an actual initiative anymore.

you know, legislation they can't really pass without any Republican, so...

It's sort of statements. Yeah. And can I just add, I mean, for at least for tech CEOs, they have seen, they've watched as both the legal and the political environment shifted. So the Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions at Harvard, you know, in terms of the political environment. Just what seems to be like a full shift away from the principles of DEI for a long time. They were criticized for creating policies

a discriminatory environment. They, you know, did these annual transparency reports around the makeup of their workforces and essentially showed no progress and got clobbered year after year. And so I do think there's a feeling of like genuine relief that they can

with political safety kind of retreat from some of these commitments. And I think at least in the U.S., there's a realization that the population is a lot more conservative than it once was. If you look at polls surrounding like mass deportation, you know, generally it feels like, and the election demonstrated it, that the country is supporting some of these Trump ideals. And so with that cover,

the tech CEOs at least, feel they're on safe ground to retreat from some of these things that always made them feel uncomfortable. - There had been a lot of hand-wringing around the development of AI and how the training of the large language models and others on data was inherently biasing them in favor of stereotypes. That came alongside

the DEI agenda, you know, concern about that. Do you think that's going to stay or will companies now feel they don't have to worry about that either? Well, Zuckerberg just promised a lot more masculine energy at Facebook. So I don't look, I mean, I think we're going to still hear those critiques leveled at the tech companies. And I don't know if in this environment they will have as much traction as they once did.

So Jenny, we have already talked implicitly about this, but I'm interested in how it feels as a reporter on the ground. There's always been a lot of corporate interests behind the scenes, particularly in US politics and policymaking. But a lot of people have been sort of taken aback by or found it jarring that just the very explicit corporate interests literally sitting behind the president as he gets inaugurated.

The idea that policy is potentially being as affected by Elon Musk and his interests as any kind of broader ideological agenda, how does that affect the way you're reporting and where the team's reporting? Well, first of all, what was very different this time around was Trump ran his entire transition out of Mar-a-Lago, which obviously there's no access for press. So it was very hard to

find out which CEOs he was dining with. And that matters to the policymaking or jobs. You know, everyone's there for a reason or an agenda. So that was really different. It feels more explicit than it did eight years ago because he came out of the gate starting trade wars. And I remember saying,

talking to companies or their lobbyists in DC and everyone was terrified to be named in a tweet. So if you could just lay low and deal with him behind the scenes, that was sort of how big companies were approaching it last time around. This time around, it seems like everyone is explicitly kissing the ring.

The story you mentioned also had the good anecdote about the Coca-Cola bottle in the end that made a special inauguration edition. So everyone is out there now on whatever, Truth Social, XX, any platform they can say, I am meeting with Trump, I am close to Trump, that is much more explicit this time around. It obviously will create, I think, instability in the way that every single person that can go into the White House...

or to Mar-a-Lago to spend the weekend there can shift policy on the fly. So it might be for us reporters, we might actually have a solid story, but are unaware that the president is having dinner in Mar-a-Lago with you name it, and then completely shifts his policies. So I think the pace was already very fast last time around, but the Mar-a-Lago addition, I think, and access this time around will be, could be more challenging and more

more interesting to figure out how we... Well, it is true that we'd had an economic statecraft team pretty much since Trump got elected the first time. And this time it's very much, or at least alongside that, we also have the corporate statecraft team. And I guess we'll see how they both do. I mean, John, I said at the start that in a sense, this was

Many people on the outside of the US would say, well, this is nothing new. There's always been a lot of business interests involved in US policy. And there's plenty of people I've spoken to, international policymakers, particularly, I would say, in what you might call the global south.

who say, thank goodness, we now have a nakedly transactional president in America is on the world stage admitting that it's totally self-interested and it's just out for its own interest, just like every other country. And it's not pretending to have all these high ideals. You know, this is a government I can do business with. I think there is a degree of that. Definitely. You can feel it. The only things on that, sort of be careful what you wish for.

Because in general, that world of free trade and globalization, which people like me supported, and which I think Donald Trump said I was wrong about everything all my life. Especially tariffs. Especially tariffs. But that was a world that enriched the poorer world. And I think from that point of view, the global South would be ill-advised to celebrate this thing. I can see why that if you are a copper magnate in some place, this might sound great in the short term.

And yes, it is perhaps more honest than some of the talk about talking about freedom and then coming in to beat people up behind it. But I think you have to be careful what you wish for. I did listen to Jenny a bit. It did strike me that some of this stuff could reverse relatively quickly on Trump. He does deeply believe in tariffs, I think. It's always been a constancy of his. So at some point there is going to be an argument

with the tech people. On Trump and Elon, at some point that could come apart. And more generally, I think on things like DEI and greenery,

without sounding too sort of blithe about it, there are other forces that will keep pushing it forward. One is just the pressure from investors, which I don't think will change that much in terms of different categories. Secondly, is on climate change, you just have the fact that we have to deal with the climate. And I think lots of people see that. I think at the edge, yes, you might see changes. But I think I would still expect corporations will retreat from some of the more

extremely publicly extreme versions of DEI, as you might put it. But I don't think there's going to be, it's not going to go all the way back to how it was in the 1950s, where it

A group of white men sat and decided everything. I mean, short term, I think the biggest thing internationally that people will be dealing with is these global financial side effects of everyone betting on a sort of super-sore-away America that potentially has unsustainable growth but certainly inflicts higher costs of borrowing. You've already seen the bond rate. You know, the bond market, I think I put it to Trump, you know, the bond market will police you. And that seems to be what's happening. It seems to be the one thing he's frightened of.

as if the bond market turns on you, that's something that people can see. So far, Trump has always focused. We had a very good bit in the last edition of Trumponomics on this. Trump has always focused on the stock market. If you're running a government, in the end, it's the bond market, which probably matters more. Jenny, I can't help mentioning we've sort of got you mid-Atlantic almost, because although you're still technically in D.C., you will be moving to Berlin. And I'm sort of intrigued how you think...

reporting this story from Europe? I mean, I've said you have to still be on the phone to Washington a lot. You'll be kind of covering both sides. But how do you think the Europeans will be dealing with this agenda? From my reporting right now, I would say they're not as prepared as they should be. LAUGHTER

This is a little wonky, but there is a big trade case that the Europeans brought against China. You might remember China used economic coercion against Lithuania. It was about them opening a Taiwan trade office. This has been in the works the entire Biden administration with lots of support from the Biden administration.

And they seem set to withdraw the case, which we reported last week was angering the Trump team because it reinforces their belief that the Europeans are weak and they're not willing to stand up to China. And Brussels is not willing to defend one of its member states and arguably a smaller one.

So I will be on the phone with people in Washington. I think I will be on the phone with people in different capitals and the people that Trump sent there. On this sort of transactionalism, I mean, if there are some governments around the world who think, OK, this is quite a straightforward thing. We just have to work out how to sell something to Donald Trump, how to make it be in his interest.

Europeans, maybe they're not so good at being transactional. They're a little bit slow compared to the Trump timeline. So I think if something gels in Brussels, Trump has moved on to new demand. So the transactional nature, I think, really works well with countries one-on-one. I think Trump obviously seems really close to Giorgio Meloni. So he will find an opportunity

ally in her and Viktor Orban. But once you actually have to respond as a body in Brussels, I don't know how well that's going to work with the transactional. So I could foresee a bunch of fights in Europe on how to respond. Do you stand up to him if he threatens tariffs? Or can you work out something else that's good for your country? I mean, John has been an orgy of sort of

Talking Europe down, one could say, in response to the to the Donald Trump's victory and also what's happened in financial markets and just an enormous spotlight on whether it's the lack of defense spending, just the lack of speed and coming up to coming up with anything, lack of speed when it comes to the economy, for sure.

Is there any positive opportunity? I mean, there may be. If I was an investor, I would be a lot richer than I am. But there may be a kind of buying opportunity to the extent that Europe is so written down. But on the face of it, it's hard not to see all these pessimistic things about Europe and not add more.

Because I think you look at it for exactly the reasons Jenny said, they're going to have this question about whether they deal with him through the European Union, which they are supposed to do on trade things. But you know, he will start, the way he acts, the way you talk to him, he will immediately start ringing Macron, rather than particularly going to Brussels. He's not going to pay much attention to that. To me, I went to a meeting the other day where a group of

Brad's lot came across to see European politicians. And the message they basically said is you have no idea about Trump, but you are comparatively well informed about Trump compared with AI. Because you have no idea what AI is going to do to the economy. You have no companies that are involved in this. You have nothing that you can really...

show the world in this. There isn't anything in continental Europe that we even think about. And so I think that is almost more frightening. I'm slightly setting Brad up to...

say how great continental Europe is. Well, I certainly, yeah, my effort to get anything out of you that was positive on Europe has completely failed. I don't know. I look hopefully towards Brad, but I'm not sure I'll get a better answer. Well, I mean, Europe does have a couple of interesting AI companies, including Mistral. Mistral. Yeah, which is great, but it is very, very small compared with anything in

But it is interesting that a lot of the leaders of these AI companies are predicting that we will achieve the next benchmark, superintelligence or AGI, in the next four years. And so that monumental economic and social change, and we can debate what it is, will happen on Trump's watch. And does it matter in your world that money is much more expensive? Because it's going to get the cost of finances going up.

I don't know that it matters. I think that's an industry that is focused on creating the next thing. And to them, and we'll see if it's true, and overly optimistic, but they believe that Trump is making it safe again for business. So, any

In a year's time, I mean, hopefully no one here will remember what you said. And, you know, it'll just go on the Internet. I mean, you know, no one will ever listen to it. What do you think we'll be, Brad, what do you, first, what do you think we'll be talking about? Well, we'll be talking about Trump, right? Because the first rule of Trump is that you must always talk about Donald Trump.

I think in one year, this honeymoon period where he has assembled a very broad coalition of supporters and partners and allies, I think that will end. That may not even last the next few weeks or as long as the first truly ambitious and aggressive executive action takes place.

I think we've had the hottest year on record now for the past few years, so we will almost undoubtedly still be talking about climate change and whether AI and the requirements of data center usage are making the problems worse.

worse rather than better. And then knock on wood, last thing, I think we might, you know, be talking about global conflict. I mean, in the short term, we're seeing the sunsetting of the war in Gaza, maybe some prospects for the war in Ukraine. But if we're talking about a de-globalized world where America is pulling back as the world's policeman, then, you know, power abhors a vacuum. And I worry what the next four years brings in that regard.

Right, Jenny, Brad's taken quite a lot of ground over for what we'll talk about in a year. Certainly that's the classic World Economic Forum agenda. All of the above. Hopefully not a virus. I think tariffs. Trump's going to be a tariff man again. I think in a year's time we see him probably shift on China or his global tariff.

He's probably going to do something with the Canada-Mexico agreement, rip that up, which that will cause a lot of instability. So, yeah, I think tariffs will be on everyone's mind again. Jenny doesn't always like me quoting her back on this, but I am struck by your answer on this. When you got one of your many scoops a few years ago and I said quite early in Trump's term,

And I've complimented you and you came back saying never a dull moment in international trade policy, which I had to reply. Oh, there really have been many, many, many. But you came into it at a very good time. John, what will we be talking about? Well, basically, I think Jenny and Brad have said all the main ones. I sort of agree with Jenny that I think that the trade thing will come back in because Trump cares about that.

And I think also the China thing will heat up again. It has to, because I think it is the one thing where you can unite America. You might be able to unite America and Europe, and that by definition brings in

both of those sides. I think the main thing, and it's a very bad cop-out, is all the unexpected things. If you went back a month ago, whoever thought that South Korea would go crazy or that we'd all be looking at pictures of Pacific Palisades? And the element about being president, and Trump discovered it in his first reign with COVID, is that you get surprised by things that come at you from the other side of the world. Greenland. Greenland.

Greenland, exactly. Or places you decide to invade just for the hell of it. But it will be that kind of thing. And you add in on top of it all the difficulties of Trump, that Trump causes anyone who tries to predict things. If you go to China and you meet some very bright people whose job it is to try and explain what's happening in America to Xi Jinping,

I think for them, the first Trump presidency was a complete nightmare because every morning they woke up to discover these tweets landing on them with places that they had never, ever thought of. It's hard to imagine that Xi Jinping was thinking about the Panama Canal and Greenland just a few weeks ago. But now someone in Beijing is having to muster on that.

Anyway, the obvious answer is, what do you think? You've said it so well, John, we've run out of time. It's such a shame. But we have been various times while we record this, I should say that we've been watching footage from Washington, both the outgoing and the incoming president getting into the motorcade and heading out.

heading for the inauguration, people filing in. And you kind of get the sense that people will be watching DC in various ways throughout this World Economic Forum because his return casts such a shadow or a spotlight on this, depending on what you think.

But thank you very much to all of you, to Brad, to Jenny, to John, and all of you in the audience for joining us for this only second ever episode of Trumponomics from Bloomberg. We hope all of you here enjoyed it. And those of you listening rate it very highly and review it. It was hosted by me, Stephanie Flanders, and I was joined by Brad Stone, Jenny Leonard and John Micklethwaite. Thanks very much.

I think...

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There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people. So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody. Find out if therapy is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com today.

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