America first, 'not alone'

Davos: US President Donald Trump reassured the world's political and financial leaders on Friday that his "America First" agenda was not a rejection of international cooperation while insisting that cross-border trade had to be made fairer and vowing action against predatory practices.

The encounter would once have been considered unlikely: a President who ran on a nationalist platform and has sought to raise barriers since taking office addressing billionaire investors, corporate executives and heads of state who have spent decades building the global economic system that he has taken steps to dismantle.

Trump sought to reconcile the profound differences in their approaches with a relatively sober, restrained speech that argued that defending national interests was consistent with a global system. He touted what he called a rising economy in the US, declaring that "America is back" and inviting foreign businesses to invest.

"I believe in America," Trump told a jam-packed auditorium at the conclusion of the annual World Economic Forum. "As President of the United States, I will always put America first - just like the leaders of other countries should put their country first. But 'America First' does not mean America alone."

Yet he did not back down from his demand that the global economic system be overhauled to guard the US from what he called unfair behaviour. "We cannot have free and open trade if some countries exploit the system at the expense of others," he said.

"We support free trade, but it needs to be fair and it needs to be reciprocal because in the end, unfair trade undermines us all. The United States will no longer turn a blind eye to unfair trade practices."

His message of an American economic comeback, however, was tempered by a report that came out while he was on stage. The US economy grew by 2.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017, healthy but lower than the expected 3 per cent Trump had set as his goal.

Overall, the economy grew 2.3 per cent in 2017, Trump's first year in office, up from 1.6 per cent in 2016, President Barack Obama's last year.

As he often does, Trump presented a selective version of the previous year. He boasted that African-American unemployment was at a new low but did not mention that it began falling in 2011 and the rate of decline on his watch was simply a continuation of the progress that began under Obama.

He claimed credit for creating 2.4 million jobs since his election, but the number of new jobs created in 2017 was no higher than in any of the last six years of Obama's tenure.

Still, he was right that the stock market had soared to new heights on his watch and that the American business community had responded to his tax cuts and regulatory rollback with enthusiasm. His surprisingly warm reception here, despite the schism over trade and global affairs, underscored the optimism of many corporate leaders.

Klaus Schwab, who founded the World Economic Forum in 1971, offered a warm introduction to Trump on Friday. "Your strong leadership is open to misconceptions and biased interpretations," he said. Still, there were scattered boos at that.