Chartbook 428 To matter or not to matter: Two theories of Davos 2026.

There are two takes on the annual World Economic Forum meeting convening in Davos this week. (Disclosure: I’m attending. I’m writing this from the busy Central Lounge in the Davos Conference Center, which is the best place to hang out and meet people).

The critical not to say dismissive position is powerfully articulated by Peter S. Goodman of the New York Times reinforced with some powerhouse quotes from my friend and colleague Mark Blyth.

They argue that that what we are witnessing in 2026 is the “death of Davos”. The entire agenda of “responsible”, reformist capitalism has wilted in the face of MAGA. Issues like climate that were formerly staples of Davos have been sidelined to avoid clashes with the Trump administration. ESG and responsible investing are in retreat.

As Mark Blyth puts it with characteristic verve:

“It (Davos) has no relevance, none whatsoever. And the bigger question is, did it ever have relevance outside the chattering classes that were embedded in the status quo to start with?” …

“Why is Trump going to Davos?” asked Mr. Blyth, the political economist “He’s punching them in the head and telling them who’s in charge. He’s informing them that, basically, unless they align with him, they no longer matter.”

The alternative view is that offered by Brooke Masters, Eric Platt and Mercedes Ruehl in the FT. They paint a picture of WEF undergoing a significant resurgence as a result of the surprisingly intense engagement by Larry Fink, founder and CEO of the dominant asset manager, BlackRock. Of course, as Goodman points out, that BlackRock’s credibility is damaged by its hasty retreat from many of the causes that Fink once espoused. But the representation of top corporate leadership and heads of government in 2026 is not run of the mill. It is far stronger than in recent years. Fink in his opening address claimed that Davos 2026 is the most comprehensive gathering of “global leadership” in the post-COVID era.

As interim co-chair of the World Economic Forum, Fink’s calls to the White House, which helped secure US President Donald Trump’s attendance, were critical to revitalising the WEF after a governance scandal threatened the institution last year. “I reached out to many people, heads of state and CEOs on the idea that we’re trying to rebuild the confidence that policymakers have, that business leaders have, that NGOs have,” Fink told the FT in an interview. This year, nearly 850 top business leaders will attend, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, a first-time attendee, new Meta president Dina Powell McCormick and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, who will be on stage for the first time in years. Fink said he saw the conference in Davos as a critical forum for world leaders to huddle with business, “focusing on how we can build economic prosperity, economic progress that is shared more broadly in the world”. …. Though Davos has been derided by critics as an elite echo chamber, Fink said that overlooked the importance of bringing leaders together. “We are living in a more polarising world. There’s more people talking at each other, not to each other,” he said. “I’m not here to tell you [the WEF] is perfect. But I think we have to stop the destructiveness of these assertions of what it is and look at what it can be.” His success in luring Trump for only his second visit as president helped elevate the gathering’s appeal for other leaders, but Fink insisted that it was “an unfair assertion” to say Davos would become “a Trump show. There is no question when the president is on stage, he’s going to command a lot of attention. “It is my role to elevate everybody and have a serious conversation.”

As of the weekend, the key issue is likely to be Greenland. As the FT also reports:

Trump, who will be at Davos on Wednesday and Thursday, is set to hold private talks with European leaders including European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, in addition to participating in a wider discussion among western countries supporting Ukraine. “We want to co-operate, and it is not we who are seeking conflict,” said Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister. National security advisers from western countries will meet in Davos on Monday afternoon. The talks were initially set to focus on Ukraine and ongoing peace talks to end Russia’s war with the country, but have been overhauled to give time to discuss the crisis over Greenland, two officials briefed on the preparations said. The Swiss foreign ministry, which is hosting the gathering, said it would “not comment on participants or topics”. Trump’s threats “certainly warrant the ACI as it would be textbook coercion”, said a third European official. “But we need to use the time to February 1 to see if Trump is interested in an off-ramp,” they said, adding that much would depend on the outcome of the talks in Davos.

As of Tuesday morning the Trump administration appears to have confirmed that Trump will engage in meetings on the topic.

This suggests two alternatives to the Goodman/Blyth dismissal of WEF, one weak, one strong.

The weaker of the two is that as chance will have it, Davos may end up playing an important role as a venue for European-American talks over the Greenland issue. This isn’t a matter of design, so much as a matter of timing or “dumb luck”. The meeting happens to coincide with a surge in tension between the US and Europe. And it offers a useful venue. In the current environment, offering a “neutral venue” is in itself a non-trivial achievement. But the relevance of WEF is largely coincidental.

The stronger counter would be to argue that Fink’s reboot of the post-Schwab WEF represents a more or less open attempt to concert governments from around the world, together with a large block of finance capital and key representatives of big tech in the hope of containing MAGA’s rampage. This is the strategy that is behind Fink’s talk about “restoring confidence”, “taking to each other” etc etc. Given the way BlackRock has folded over “stakeholder capitalism” and ESG, it may be hard to set much store by this. But with both the Fed and NATO up for grabs, if not now, then when?

It is certainly going to be a mind-bending moment discussing the 2020s as the return of the 1920s with Fink, Lagarde, Sorkin and Griffin on Wednesday morning. With that choice of title I think they meant to evoke the “new era” enthusiasm of the 1920s and the current AI boom. I am going to try to turn the conversation in quite a different direction, towards Mussolini’s aggression against Greece, the Dawes plan and the failed stabilization of dollar hegemony. We shall see.

But clearly what matters here, is not the relevance of conference, or its program. Davos is merely the occasion to debate a basic question of political economy. Are we in a moment in which MAGA rules, in which ideology and the logic of political radicalization trump any kind of business logic, let alone macroeconomic reason? Or is there a counterweight that can be assembled?

You might ask, why one would expect a collection of competitive business elites to offer any kind of counterweight to a pro-business Republican administration. Clearly, business likes low taxes and deregulation. Clearly CEOs are willing to suck up to Trump to secure freedom of maneuver. They will exploit the haphazard decision-making of the White House to lobby for particular advantages. But no one can seriously argue that US business has an interest in the chaotic trade policy of the administration, let alone the disinhibited linkage of trade with Trump’s incoherent foreign policy and globe spanning culture war. No one can seriously argue that American business has an interest in the disruptive and tendentious legal threats against the US Fed. Whatever your position on the future of the energy industry, an active disavowal of the science of climate change is simply irrational.

So the question of a counterweight cannot simply be dismissed. There is both an individual and collective interest in containing the administration of the man who wrote this letter from the White House to the Prime Minister of Norway.

The fact that such a letter could be drafted and sent and that the entire US delegation will no doubt express their approval of it, highlights the staggering degeneration of American political culture. This undeniably poses a serious risk for the entire world. How the global business class will respond is, to put it mildly, an important question. Not one we can lightly dismiss.

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I love writing the newsletter. Can’t wait to get back to even more active posting in 2026 when the book is done. In the mean time, if you fancy buying me a coffee once a month, you know what to do. Chartbook will keep on coming in any case.