Trump's Davos 2025 Speech Transcript and Overview of Q&A with Financial Giants

Organizer: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

President Donald Trump delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, marking his first appearance at an international event since returning to the White House earlier this week.

In a 45-minute address, Trump criticized European regulators for being too harsh on American tech companies, oil producers for keeping prices too high, and large banks for refusing to serve conservatives.

He also called on countries around the world to invest in the United States, promising low tax rates and a more relaxed regulatory framework.

Domestically, Trump expressed pressure on the Federal Reserve regarding interest rates.

"I will ask for an immediate reduction in interest rates," Trump said. "Similarly, interest rates around the world should also go down. Interest rates should follow our lead down."

It is widely believed that Trump's remarks are a prelude to his upcoming lobbying efforts against Federal Reserve Chairman Powell.

Golden Finance has compiled the full text of Trump's speech as follows:

Klaus Schwab, Founder of the World Economic Forum:

Mr. President, hello, it is a great honor and pleasure to welcome you back to the Davos family. You have been in office for only four days, and we are very grateful for your presence today. We wish you all the best. In the critical work you will undertake in the future, the global challenges we face today are immense, and America's leadership and your personal leadership in this regard are crucial. We are here to hear your vision and policies for revitalizing the economy and addressing global challenges. As you would expect, Mr. President, your return to office and the policies you are about to implement have been the focus of our discussions this week. Therefore, 3,000 political and business leaders from over 130 countries have gathered in Davos, and we look forward to hearing your remarks first.

Founder of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab

Trump:

Thank you very much, Klaus, beautiful Davos!

President of the United States Donald Trump

Hello everyone, this is a truly historic week for America. Three days ago, I was sworn in, and we have ushered in a golden age for America. The recent presidential election was won by millions of votes, and we won all seven states. This is a massive mandate from the American people, unprecedented in many years. Some political commentators, even some of my so-called enemies, have said this is the most important electoral victory in 129 years.

What the world has witnessed in the past 72 hours is nothing short of a revolution of common sense. Our country will soon be stronger, wealthier, and more united than ever before, and the entire planet will be more peaceful and prosperous as a result of this incredible momentum.

My administration is taking action at an unprecedented speed to address the disasters we inherited from a group of completely incompetent people, tackling every crisis our nation faces. First, we must confront the economic chaos caused by the failed policies of the previous administration over the past four years. Our government wasted $8 trillion in deficit spending and implemented destructive energy restrictions, strict regulations, and hidden taxes, resulting in the worst inflation crisis in modern history. Interest rates for our citizens and indeed the entire world are outrageous, food prices and nearly everything else known to humanity are skyrocketing, and President Biden has completely lost control of what is happening in our country, especially regarding our high-inflation economy and border issues.

Due to these destructive policies, this year's government spending is projected to be $1.5 trillion higher than when I left office four years ago. Similarly, the cost of servicing the debt is over 230% higher than projected in 2020. The inflation rate we inherited is still 50% higher than historical targets, which may be the highest inflation rate in our nation's history. That is why, from the moment I took office, I took swift action to reverse every radical leftist policy that caused this disaster, particularly regarding immigration crime and inflation. On my first day, I signed an executive order directing every member of my cabinet to mobilize all the power at their disposal to defeat inflation and lower the cost of everyday living. I implemented a federal hiring freeze, a federal regulation freeze, and a freeze on foreign aid. I created a new government efficiency department and terminated absurd and unbelievable waste.

The Green New Deal, which I call the Green New Scam, withdrew from the one-sided Paris Climate Agreement and ended the crazy and expensive electric vehicle mandates. We will let people buy the cars they want. I declared a national energy emergency, which is very important. The national energy emergency is to unleash the liquid gold beneath our feet and pave the way for the rapid approval of new energy infrastructure. The United States has the most oil and gas on the planet, and we will utilize it. This will not only lower the cost of nearly all goods and services but also make America a manufacturing superpower and the world capital of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.

My administration has also launched the largest deregulation effort in history, far exceeding the record efforts of my previous term. The Biden administration has added $50,000 in additional regulatory costs to the average American family over the past four years. I promise to eliminate ten old regulations for every new regulation we repeal, which will soon put thousands of dollars back in the pockets of American families and further unleash our economy.

We will achieve the largest tax cut in American history, including massive tax cuts for workers and their families, as well as significant tax cuts for domestic producers and manufacturers. We are working with Democrats to extend the original tax cuts, and you can read any newspaper to know that the message I am sending to every business in the world is simple: come to America and produce your products here, and we will give you the lowest tax rates of any country in the world. We are significantly lowering tax rates, even lower than the original tax cuts, but if you choose not to produce your products in America, that is your privilege, and simply put, you will have to pay different amounts of tariffs, but those tariffs will funnel hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars into our treasury to strengthen our economy and pay down our debt.

Under the leadership of the Trump administration, there is no better place on Earth to create jobs, build factories, or grow companies than the United States. The American economy is already showing this. American economic confidence is soaring. Just announced, small business optimism surged 41 percentage points in one month, the highest ever, never seen before. SoftBank announced a $100 to $200 billion investment in the American economy because of the election results. Just two days ago, Oracle, SoftBank, and OpenAI announced a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure, and other companies have announced billions, billions, and billions of dollars in investments, totaling trillions of dollars in investments in America.

Today's newspapers also report that Saudi Arabia will invest at least $600 billion in the U.S., but I will ask the Crown Prince to round that number up to about $1 trillion. He is a great guy, and I think they will do it because we have treated them well. I will also ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to lower oil costs; you must bring the prices down. If oil prices drop, the Russia-Ukraine war will end immediately. Now that oil prices are high enough, the war will continue. You must lower oil prices; you must end the war. They are actually largely responsible for what is happening to some extent. I will ask for an immediate reduction in interest rates, and similarly, interest rates around the world should also go down.

Everything you see is because we recently achieved a historic victory in the presidential election, a victory that is well-known around the world. I believe many countries have experienced many changes. They say that since the election, the whole world has been shining, and even those countries we are not particularly friendly with are pleased because they understand what the future looks like, and under our leadership, how wonderful the future will be. America is back and open for business.

This week, I also took swift action to stop illegal immigration at the southern border. I decided to declare a national emergency at our border to immediately stop all illegal crossers from entering. We will begin to rapidly deport illegal crossers back to where they came from. You may have seen that this action has already begun, very forcefully, with active-duty U.S. military and National Guard deployed to the border to assist in repelling the invasion. This is a real invasion, and we will not allow our territory to be violated after four long years. America is a strong, sovereign, and beautiful country, and it is once again a strong and sovereign nation.

Furthermore, I am pleased to announce that America is also a free country. On my first day, I signed an executive order to stop all government censorship. Our government will no longer label the speech of our own citizens as misinformation or false information, which are the favorite terms of censors and those who wish to stifle free exchange of ideas and candid progress. We have saved free speech in America, and we powerfully saved it this week with another historic executive order.

I have also ended the weaponization of law enforcement against the American people and, frankly, against politicians, restoring fairness, equality, and justice under the rule of law. My administration has taken action to abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion nonsense. These policies are absolute nonsense throughout the government and private sector, and with the recent but somewhat surprising major ruling by the Supreme Court, America will once again be a merit-based nation; you must hear the term "merit-based nation."

I have officially declared the United States' official policy to recognize only two genders, male and female. We will not have males participating in women's sports, and the once-popular transgender movement will be very rare.

Ultimately, as we restore common sense in America, we will take swift action to restore power, peace, and stability abroad. I will also ask all NATO countries to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP, which should have been reached years ago when it was only 2%. Most countries had not paid these military expenses before I took office, and I insisted they pay, and they did because the U.S. was indeed covering the shortfall at that time. This is unfair to America, but many things have been unfair to America for many years. Even before I took office, my team negotiated a ceasefire agreement in the Middle East, which would not have been achieved without us. Earlier this week, hostages began returning to their families; they are back, and it is a beautiful thing, and they will be coming back more and more.

Our efforts to ensure a peaceful resolution between Russia and Ukraine are now underway, and it is crucial to complete this work. This is an absolute slaughterhouse, millions of soldiers have been killed, and no one has seen anything like this since World War II, their bodies lying in the flat fields, a flat farmland where millions of Russians and millions of Ukrainians have not seen anything like this since World War II; it is time to end it.

In America, we have major events next year; America will celebrate its 250th anniversary, and I am honored to be president during this significant event that they have been talking about for ten years. We also have the World Cup, and then we are about to host the Olympics, which also played a key role in my first term. Who would know that I could skip a term and still get the Olympics? I will be president during the World Cup, the Olympics, and the 250th anniversary, so these will be three major events. We have accomplished more in less than four days than other administrations have done in four years.

We have only just begun, and the spirit and brilliance of our country are astonishing. Under the leadership of the last administration, our country suffered tremendous losses, but we will restore it and make it stronger and better than ever before. I hear the audience is great; many of my friends are in the audience, and I will now take questions from some very distinguished individuals. Thank you all very much.

Q&A Session:

Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone Group

Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone Group: Mr. President, thank you for your very powerful speech. I think from Davos to the White House, you can hear the applause. So we welcome you to continue joining us next year. Thank you very much. My question is, about some things I observed in Davos: many European business leaders expressed great dissatisfaction with the EU's regulatory regime. They believe there are many reasons for the economic slowdown here, but mainly due to regulation. And you have taken a completely different approach in this area; I would appreciate it if you could explain the theory behind what you are doing. Thank you very much.

Trump: I want to talk about the EU because you mentioned it specifically. I have many friends and leaders of countries whom I got to know during my first term. Over those four years, I got to know them very well and liked them, but they are very frustrated. Because it seems that everything takes time to get an environmental impact statement approved, and these statements are something you shouldn't have to do. Because there are many other ways to substitute for the statement. Let me give you a simple example: in my private life, I live a simple and beautiful life. But when I was living a simple life, I did some projects; I have a big project in Ireland that had to get approved, which would make it better. I got the approval from Ireland in a week, which was a very, very efficient approval. They told me the biggest problem is that you have to get approval from the EU, and we think that will take five to six years. I said you must be joking; I don't want to spend five or six years, but this is going to be a big investment, and it will be good for the project. I sent people to the EU to see if they could speed it up. At that moment, I realized that this was my first real involvement in EU affairs, but I realized that this was a problem, and I was even too lazy to apply.

If I did, I would quickly withdraw because you can't wait five or six years to get approval. So many people, from a very large business perspective, claim that this is America's problem; the EU is very unfair to us, very bad. They have a massive tax regime that we know about, and they impose VAT, which is a very substantial tax. They do not accept our agricultural products; they do not accept our cars, but they send us millions of cars, and they impose tariffs on what we want to do. They want to sell their products in America, so we have a multi-hundred billion dollar deficit with the EU, and no one is happy about it. What are we going to do about it?

I think the EU needs to speed up their approval process. Some of my friends in some EU countries are great people, and they want to compete better. If you can't get through the approval process quickly, you can't compete. They impose VAT and all other taxes on us, which is very, very unfair, and we have some very big complaints against the EU.

Patrick Pouyanne, CEO of TotalEnergies

Patrick Pouyanne, CEO of TotalEnergies: I am honored to participate in this panel discussion on behalf of the energy industry tonight. TotalEnergies is indeed the fourth-largest natural gas power company in the world. I will not ask you about oil prices. We are LNG exporters from the United States, and we are strong contributors to the Mamu Energy project in Texas, where we invested $20 billion, although far below the $220 billion, it is still $20 billion. Through these investments, we have contributed to the security of supply for Europe because we export this energy to Europe. Some experts are concerned that if the U.S. develops too many LNG projects, it may have an inflationary impact on domestic gas prices, and they suggest taking a stance on this project. I would like to ask you the following question: What is your view on this stance regarding U.S. energy investments, and what would happen if you found that domestic gas prices were rising due to exports? Finally, this question is important for Europe: do you agree to guarantee the security of U.S. energy supplies to Europe?

Trump: Regarding your last question, yes, I will ensure security; we will reach an agreement. LNG is very interesting because when I took office in my first term, I was first considering two very large plants in Louisiana, which was very beneficial for me. I am actually very grateful for it. They said that two plants had been under environmental consideration for over ten years, and their costs, as you said, you know how expensive these plants are, but their costs are about $12 billion; I think it is $14 billion or $15 billion, but they couldn't get the permits. They were scrutinized for many years, probably ten years or more. I said this is ridiculous. The total investment you mentioned is $25 to $30 billion, and it looks like it is about to end; they can't get the permits. I got it done in less than a week.

What I want to see is that we will quickly approve these reviews in the U.S., just like the AI plan; many people want to build them, and this will be a big deal. We will build power generation facilities, and I will get them approved under an emergency declaration. I can get the approvals myself without waiting for years. The biggest issue is that we need to double America's current energy supply. Can you imagine how great AI will be if it is really as we want it to be because it is very competitive, and it will compete with China and other countries.

If an emergency occurs, coal is a very strong backup power source, and having that facility is a good backup; it won't cost too much. We have more coal than anyone else, and we have more oil and gas than anyone else, so we will make these power plants have their own generation facilities directly connected to their power plants. They don't have to worry about utilities; they don't have to worry about anything; we will approve them very quickly.

(Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America)

Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America: Good afternoon, Mr. President, congratulations. Clearly, this has been a busy week for you and your family. If you remember five years ago when you came here, we engaged with 50 CEOs from around the world, and you discussed your policies and procedures with them. As you mentioned earlier, a series of orders followed regarding immigration, trade, and many other issues, so as representatives of America, we received many questions. The President is focused on growth, prosperity, market growth, stock market growth, good bond markets, and lowering prices. How do you see the impact of these orders? How quickly are they being issued? How will you balance them while maintaining sustained GDP growth, lowering inflation, and keeping good stock prices while reducing corporate taxes to 21%?

Trump: In fact, if you look at the states and cities, in many cases, corporate taxes are far above 40%. I brought it down to 21%, and now we will bring it down from 21% to 15%. If you produce products in America, you will have the lowest tax rate, almost the lowest tax rate, and the lowest among major countries. You know, a wealthy and powerful country has not had competition so far, so we will bring it down to 15%.

We are actually reducing taxes for businesses and small businesses, bringing it down to 15%. This is really a remarkable thing. By the way, speaking of you, you are doing a great job, but I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives because many conservatives complain that banks do not allow them to do business inside the bank, including a place called Bank of America.

(Ana Botin, Executive Chairman of Santander Bank)

Ana Botin, Executive Chairman of Santander Bank: Mr. President, congratulations on our historic victory. I believe you do not know me as well as my colleagues, so let me introduce myself. Santander Bank is one of the largest banks in the world by customer numbers, with 170 million, which is more than my friends Brian or Jamie have. They are fixing the upcoming regulations, which is tricky. We are a major investor in the U.S., with millions of customers and 12,000 employees. We are one of the largest auto loan institutions, and we recently launched a fully digital bank called Open Bank. We firmly believe that banks play a key role in the economy, and we can accelerate growth and help more customers; that is what we are doing in the U.S. So as Brian pointed out, we very much welcome your focus on deregulation and reducing bureaucracy. So my question is, what are your priorities in this regard? How quickly will this happen?

Trump: Thank you very much! I know your bank very well, and you are doing an excellent job. We will take swift action; we are acting very quickly. In the past three days, we have done some things that no one thought possible for years, and everything is coming into effect. This will have a tremendous impact on the economy, creating a huge positive impact. Money has been wasted on crazy things; I mean, the Green New Deal is a complete disgrace. I must add that they have never even taken an energy or environmental course; it is just a game.

You know, during my four years in office, our air was the cleanest, our water was the cleanest, but our economy was the most productive in history. In fact, you can look at the whole world; we beat all countries. One thing we want to do is to demand respect from other countries. For example, Canada, we have a huge deficit with Canada, and we will not do that anymore. Canada has been difficult to deal with for years; we have a $200 billion or $250 billion deficit, which is unfair. We do not need them to manufacture our cars; we do not need their lumber; we do not need their oil and gas.

We are dealing with Mexico, and I think it is good; we just want to be treated fairly with other countries. Politicians are allowing other countries to take advantage of us, and we cannot allow that to happen anymore. You know we have debt, which is a small debt. We just want to eliminate the debt, and we will be able to do that relatively quickly. Many good things will happen, and honestly, good things will happen in the world, and good things will happen to those who deal with us.

I really want to meet with President Putin as soon as possible to end this war, not from an economic or any other perspective, but from the perspective of millions of lives being wasted. Young people are being shot on the battlefield; you know bullets are on very flat land, as I said, bullets do not hide; the only thing that can stop a bullet is the human body. You must see that this is a massacre, and we really must stop this war. This does not include the buildings in cities being destroyed and the people who died, so we really should stop this.

The same goes for the Middle East. I think we have made great progress in the Middle East, and I believe it will make good progress.

Borge Brende, CEO of the World Economic Forum

Borge Brende, CEO of the World Economic Forum: Thank you, thank you, Mr. President. We know that the most important relationship in the world is between the United States and China. We account for 28% of the global economy, and China is close to 20%, nearly half of the global GDP. How do you see the relationship between the United States and China under your leadership in the next four years?

I believe we will have a very good relationship. What we want is fairness; we just want a fair competitive environment; we do not want to take advantage. Biden's $1.1 trillion deficit is ridiculous; it is just an unfair relationship, and we must make it fair.

In fact, many Asian countries, we have a very large deficit with them, and we cannot continue like this. We have maintained a good relationship with China, and we look forward to maintaining a good relationship with China, hoping that China can help us stop the war with Russia and Ukraine. They have a significant influence on the situation, and we will work with them. We hope to achieve denuclearization with President Putin before the election results are announced.

Borge Brende, CEO of the World Economic Forum: Mr. President, will Ukraine and Russia reach a peace agreement?

Trump: If I were the President of Ukraine, this war should not have started. There was no war during my administration; I never even talked about it. But when I left office, bad things happened. The end result is now these bombed-out cities that look like demolition sites, and many people have died. I think you will see the death toll in Ukraine far exceeds what has been reported. I have seen it; when you see a city turned into a demolition site, buildings destroyed by missiles, many people killed, I am surprised how that relates to me. I think you will find that the death toll in the Ukraine war is much higher than anyone imagines, but if you look now, many of those killed are soldiers holding guns, rifles, and drones, the new form of warfare with drones… this is a very sad thing.