What happened in Davos on January 20, 2026 was not a gentle debate among elites but a wake-up call delivered by the Trump administration — and make no mistake, it was led from the podium by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick when he told the World Economic Forum flatly that “globalization has failed the West and the United States of America.” This was not a throwaway line; it was a challenge to the entire corporate-globalist consensus that has hollowed out American industry for decades.
Lutnick ripped into the playbook the WEF has long promoted: export, offshore, find the cheapest labor and call it progress, all while American workers paid the price. He singled out the consequences of that model — shuttered factories, lost supply-chain sovereignty, and communities left behind — and offered the plainspoken alternative the White House now champions: put American workers and national resilience first.
The reaction from the assembled Davos crowd exposed exactly why this administration’s message hits nerves: footage and reporting describe everything from stunned silence to audible heckling, with even establishment figures walking out of events in protest. The elites who cheered for globalism now faced the consequences of the policies they’ve pushed, and they didn’t like being told the truth about the price their ideology imposed on ordinary citizens.
Lutnick didn’t stop at rhetoric — he warned that Europe’s rush to unreliable green energy policies would only deepen dependency on Chinese manufacturing, particularly batteries, and argued that America must reverse its own dependence by rebuilding domestic industry. That realpolitik assessment is what responsible leaders do: they prioritize sovereignty and supply-chain security over virtue-signaling and appeasing foreign manufacturers.
This intervention in Davos came as part of a much larger, unmistakable shift: President Trump is sending the largest U.S. delegation in years to confront a global governing class that has too often valued abstract “global solutions” over the livelihoods of Americans. From tariffs to industrial policy, this administration is finally wielding the tools necessary to put American prosperity ahead of global elites’ priorities.
Conservatives should celebrate this moment because it validates what we’ve been saying for years: unchecked globalism didn’t lift up American workers, it traded away their futures. It’s time to be unapologetic about restoring manufacturing, securing critical supply chains, and demanding trade that is fair, reciprocal, and serves the nation that pays for it. No more hollow promises from technocrats who never had to worry about their towns dying when a plant closed.
If Davos left the elites annoyed, good. The point isn’t to comfort the comfortable — it’s to fight for the forgotten and to reclaim economic sovereignty for the people who build this country. Americans deserve leaders who put their interests first, and seeing the White House stand up to Davos proves that America-first policies are not only politically popular, they’re morally necessary.
