Trump at Davos: ‘The Time for Skepticism Is Over’

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tues
AP Photo/Markus Schreiber

President Donald Trump highlighted the U.S. economic boom in his address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Tuesday while promising he would “never let radical socialists destroy our economy.”

The president said by cutting taxes and slashing regulations his administration was able to fully tap American energy, leading to record prosperity.

“Since my election, America has gained over 7 million jobs,” Trump said, and the unemployment rate “is now 3.5 percent – the lowest in more than fifty years.”

Trump underscored the economic resurgence of ethnic Americans, noting that unemployment rates “among African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans have all reached record lows” and that “African-American youth unemployment has reached the lowest it’s ever been in the history of our country.”

“Wages are rising across-the-board, and those at the bottom of the income ladder are enjoying the percentage by far of largest gains,” he said. “Workers’ wages are now growing faster than management wages. Earnings growth for the bottom ten percent is outpacing the top ten percent. Paychecks for high school graduates are rising faster than for college graduates.”

“No one is benefitting more than America’s Middle Class. We have created 1.2 million manufacturing and construction jobs – a number also unthinkable,” he said.

“The time for skepticism is over.  People are flowing back into our country.  Companies are coming back into our country,” Trump said.

As a result of the efforts of his administration, “investment is pouring into our country,” he said. “In the first half of 2019, the United States attracted nearly one-quarter of all foreign direct investment in the world.”

“America’s newfound prosperity is undeniable, unprecedented and unmatched anywhere in the world,” he proclaimed.

“A nation’s highest duty is to its own citizens,” the president insisted. “Honoring this truth is the only way to build faith and confidence in the market system. Only when governments put their own citizens first will people be fully invested in their national futures.”

Along with cutting taxes and slashing regulations, Trump held up America’s newfound Energy Independence as a key to economic success.

“The United States is now by far the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world by far; it’s not even close,” he said.

“We have been so successful that the United States no longer needs to import energy from hostile nations,” he said. “With an abundance of American natural gas now available, our European allies no longer have to be vulnerable to unfriendly energy suppliers either.”

“At the same time, I am proud to report the United States has among the cleanest air and drinking water on earth,” he noted, “and we are going to keep it that way.”

“We are committed to conserving the majesty of God’s creation and the natural beauty of our world,” he said.

“This is not a time for pessimism — this is a time for optimism — fear and doubt is not a good thought process – because this is a time for tremendous hope, and joy, optimism, and action,” he said, while urging his hearers to reject “the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse.”

“They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune-tellers – and I have them and you have them and we all have them. And they want to see us do badly but we don’t let happen,” he added, before enumerating a series of such failed predictions in the past.

“These alarmists always demand the same thing: absolute power to dominate, transform, and control every aspect of our lives,” Mr. Trump said. “We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country, or eradicate our liberty.”

“In America, we understand what the pessimists refuse to see: that a growing and vibrant market economy focused on the future lifts the human spirit and excites creativity strong enough to overcome any challenge, any challenge by far,” he said.

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