{"id":529479,"date":"2026-01-20T09:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T09:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/529479\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T09:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T09:16:11","slug":"trump-heads-to-davos-to-talk-about-affordability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/529479\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump heads to Davos to talk about affordability"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> plans to use a key address Wednesday to try to convince Americans he can make housing more affordable<\/a>, but he\u2019s picked a strange backdrop for the speech: a Swiss mountain town where ski chalets for vacations cost a cool $4.4 million.<\/p>\n

On the anniversary of his inauguration, Trump is flying to the World Economic Forum<\/a> in Davos \u2014 an annual gathering of the global elite \u2014 where he may see many of the billionaires he has surrounded himself with during his first year back in the White House. <\/p>\n

Trump had campaigned on lowering the cost of living, painting himself as a populist while serving fries at a McDonald\u2019s drive-thru<\/a>. But in office, his public schedules suggest he\u2019s traded the Golden Arches for a gilded age, devoting more time to cavorting with the wealthy than talking directly to his working-class base.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s the investors and billionaires at Davos who have his attention, not the families struggling to afford their bills,\u201d said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal think tank.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s attention in his first year back has been less on pocketbook issues and more fixed on foreign policy with conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine and Venezuela. He is now bent on acquiring Greenland<\/a> to the chagrin of European allies \u2014 a headline likely to dominate his time in Davos, overshadowing his housing ideas.<\/p>\n

Trump noted the Europeans\u2019 resistance, telling reporters Monday night, \u201cLet\u2019s put it this way: It\u2019s going to be a very interesting Davos.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House has tried to shift Trump\u2019s focus to affordability issues<\/a>, a response to warning signs in the polls in a year where control of Congress is at stake in midterm elections.<\/p>\n

About six in 10 U.S. adults now say that Trump has hurt the cost of living, according to the latest survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research<\/a>. It\u2019s an issue even among Republicans, who have said Trump\u2019s work on the economy hasn\u2019t lived up to their expectations<\/a>. Only 16% say Trump has helped \u201ca lot\u201d on making things more affordable, down from 49% in April 2024, when an AP-NORC poll asked Americans the same question about his first term.<\/p>\n

The president is banking on investment commitments<\/a> from billionaires and foreign nations<\/a> to create a jobs boom, even as his broad tariffs have crimped the labor market<\/a> and spurred inflation<\/a>. Trump supporters who attend his rallies \u2014 which the president resumed last month \u2014 are left to trust that Trump\u2019s business ties can eventually help them.<\/p>\n

This strategy carries political risks. Voters are more interested in the economy they\u2019re experiencing in their own lives than in Trump\u2019s relationships with billionaires, said Frank Luntz, the Republican-affiliated pollster and strategist. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re asking me, \u2018Are billionaires popular?\u2019 The answer is no \u2014 and they\u2019ve haven\u2019t been for some time,\u201d said Luntz, who last year identified \u201caffordability\u201d as a defining issue for voters.<\/p>\n

Wooing billionaires instead of the working class<\/p>\n

Since Trump\u2019s first term in 2017, the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans<\/a> have seen their wealth increase by $11.98 trillion to $23.46 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n

The magnitude of those gains dwarfs what the bottom 50% of households \u2014 the majority of the country \u2014 received during the same period. Their net worth rose by $2.94 trillion, roughly one-fourth what the top 0.1% got.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest concerns for voters is the cost of housing<\/a>. In recent weeks, Trump has floated proposals like reducing interest rates on home loans by buying $200 billion in mortgage debt<\/a> and banning large financial companies<\/a> from buying homes. Yet those efforts would do little to address the core problem in the housing market: a multi-year shortfall in home construction and home prices that have generally risen faster than wages.<\/p>\n

Trump regularly points to the investments made by the wealthy and powerful as signs of economic growth to come. To encourage billionaires to deliver, Trump in his first year pursued policies on artificial intelligence<\/a> and financial regulation<\/a> that can benefit the wealthy, along with tax cuts<\/a>, reduced IRS enforcement<\/a> and fewer regulatory burdens<\/a> for large-scale investments.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost billionaires don\u2019t share the interests of the working class,\u201d said Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has written about the \u201cwealthification\u201d of U.S. politics. \u201cThe ultrawealthy love tax cuts and deregulation, and those preferences make it difficult for government to provide the help that working class people want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has been trying to sell tax breaks on tips<\/a> and overtime pay from what is known as the \u201c One Big Beautiful Bill<\/a> \u201d as benefiting workers. But a Congressional Budget Office analysis<\/a> indicated that middle-class families may only see savings of $800 to $1,200 a year, on average, while the top 10% of earners would receive $13,600. A separate analysis by the Tax Policy Center<\/a>, a think tank, said those earning above $1 million would save on average $66,510 this year.<\/p>\n

The company Trump keeps<\/p>\n

Trump regularly holds public events with the wealthy and powerful at the White House<\/a> and beyond. He jetted to the Middle East and Asia with billionaires in tow<\/a> as he had foreign countries announce investment commitments, promising that the money would flow down into factory jobs for the middle class.<\/p>\n

At a September dinner with tech billionaires<\/a>, Trump said it was an honor to be surrounded by the likes of Bill Gates, Tim Cook, Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s never been anything like it,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThe most brilliant people are gathered around this table. This is definitely a high-IQ group and I\u2019m very proud of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House said the previous Biden administration had alienated the business community to the detriment of the economy. \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s pro-growth policies and friendly relationships with industry titans, on the other hand, are securing trillions in investments that are creating jobs and opportunities for everyday Americans,\u201d White House spokesman Kush Desai said.<\/p>\n

Last month, Trump celebrated a charitable contribution of $6.25 billion to the \u201cTrump\u201d investment accounts for children by Michael Dell<\/a>. It was a chance to talk about economic inequality \u2014 but also another opportunity for Trump to showcase his relationship with billionaires.<\/p>\n

Trump takes phone calls from billionaires and CEOs to chat about business, politics and interests such as his planned White House ballroom. He regularly peppers his speeches with shoutouts to Nvidia founder Jensen Huang<\/a>, whose net worth was estimated by Forbes at roughly $162 billion as of Sunday.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s installed billionaires in his inner circle such as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (net worth: $3.3 billion) and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff (net worth: $2 billion). He put Elon Musk (net worth: $780 billion) in charge of slashing government payrolls before a dramatic falling-out and, later, a public reconciliation.<\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at a briefing last month portrayed Trump\u2019s own status as a billionaire as a positive for him with voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s one of the many reasons they reelected him back to this office, because he\u2019s a businessman who understands the economy and knows how to fix it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump plans to use a key address Wednesday to try to convince Americans…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":529480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[234895,243,64,198264,84,69,2239,66,234896,57,2055,86,8298,17785,2010,8133,7798,18110,59890,147,80,110766,24822,67,132,68,93,33536,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-529479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-alex-jacquez","9":"tag-bill-gates","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-darrell-west","12":"tag-district-of-columbia","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-economic-indicators","15":"tag-elon-musk","16":"tag-frank-luntz","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-government-and-politics","19":"tag-government-policy","20":"tag-greenland","21":"tag-howard-lutnick","22":"tag-jensen-huang","23":"tag-karoline-leavitt","24":"tag-mark-zuckerberg","25":"tag-mcdonalds-corp","26":"tag-michael-dell","27":"tag-nvidia-corp","28":"tag-politics","29":"tag-sergei-brin","30":"tag-tim-cook","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-washington-news","35":"tag-world-economic-forum","36":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115926675380479477","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}