(Zero Hedge)—Watch President Trump’s address to Davos here:
President Trump’s trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos was briefly delayed after Air Force One returned to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, shortly after departure due to a minor electrical issue identified on the 747. Flight crews did not declare an emergency or squawk 7700, indicating the situation was precautionary.
Real-time aircraft tracking platform AirNav Radar showed the flight path of AF1 as it departed Joint Base Andrews for Davos, Switzerland, in the overnight hours. While paralleling the coast of Long Island, pilots appeared to decide to return to Joint Base Andrews due to a “minor electrical issue.”
AF1 landed safely at Andrews around 2300 ET, after about an hour and 20 minutes in the air, according to AirNav Radar.
Trump and the delegation traveling with him quickly boarded a Boeing 757, typically used by the Vice President or other cabinet members, and took off around midnight en route to Davos.
Despite the brief travel delay, Trump has arrived in Switzerland. He is expected to address the Davos elites at 0830 ET.
The focus of Trump’s speech is likely on the domestic agenda, particularly housing, according to Goldman’s Delta One desk-head, Rich Privorotsky, who noted that overnight headlines floated executive action aimed at curbing institutional home purchases, though legal scope looks narrow.
Expectations are also building around incremental flexibility in 401k usage as part of a broader affordability push.
Late chatter about tariff rebate checks feels legally doubtful without Congressional backing.
Polling on affordability remains weak, and foreign adventurism…Greenland in particular…has not helped approval ratings.
This speech has been framed as both a reset toward domestic priorities and given the relative outperformance of domestic stocks could be an important catalyst
But, earlier, at the Davos podium, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a historic rebuke to the U.S. under President Trump, declaring the rules-based order led by America “a pleasant fiction” (reiterating his recent remarks on the shifting world order)
“I will talk today about the breaking of the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a brutal reality where the geopolitics of the great powers is not subject to any constraint,” said Mr. Carney.
“Every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great-power rivalry,” he said.
“That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”
He added, “Let me be direct: We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”
“This bargain no longer works.”
In his speech Mr. Carney called on medium-size countries like Canada to band together to offset the power of the United States, China and Russia.
“The middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” he said. “Great powers can afford for now to go it alone.”
Carney, who received a standing ovation, spoke not long after Mr. Trump posted an A.I. image on social media that included a map of American flags superimposed over both Canada and the United States.
While the address has been front-run as being about domestic ‘affordability’, we suspect the President will diverge from the teleprompter a little and use this as an excuse to discuss his various recent escapades around the world (and take a shot at Carney and Macron).
JPMorgan may have summed it up best: “We thought the president was going to Davos to talk about housing and credit card affordability. Suddenly now it’s become about Greenland affordability.”
