For three days Donald Trump dominated Davos from a distance.
On the fourth, he did it in person, albeit virtually, with a speech that took his threats of economic conflict with Europe directly to its political leaders.
Beamed from the White House to the World Economic Forum, he delivered a message of total confidence in American might, and a direct challenge to those that do not play along.
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Initially, he stuck to the inauguration script and his domestic program but, teed up by a question from his Mar-a-Lago neighbour and former adviser Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder of the Blackstone Group, he let rip.
Mr Schwarzman identified a theme of this week, frustration at EU regulation among businesses, and the president took full advantage.
He criticised taxes on American companies, and what he sees as a trade imbalance. “They don’t take our food, they don’t take our cars, but they send us cars by the million.”
EU demands for $15bn in back taxes from Apple, as well as investigations into Google and Facebook, were also slammed. “These companies, like them or not, these are American companies.
“Nobody’s happy with it and we are going to do something about it. I’m trying to be constructive, I love Europe, but they treat the US very unfairly.”
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His counter-offer to the businesses listening; corporation tax of just 15% for companies that shift their manufacturing to the US, and tariffs for those that don’t, a position that would inevitably bring retaliation.
In the audience, the heads of the European Central Bank, the World Trade Association, the International Money Fund and sundry cabinet ministers and central bankers, shifted in their seats.
As if to emphasise what Europe is up against, Mr Trump cited a $600bn investment promised by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and suggested “he round it up to a trillion”.
Having parked metaphorical tanks on chancellery lawns, he offered some hope, but not detail, on how he might address the real ones rolling across Ukraine.
Referring to “millions of dead bodies lying on the flat fields” he said efforts to secure peace “should be under way”. Asked when that might happen, he said the answer lay with Russia. “Ukraine is ready.”
Having started the week guessing what Trump 2.0 might mean, Davos’ delegates, that unique mix of money, power, civil society and celebrity, leave the Alps under no illusion of the disruption ahead.
