WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to use a key address Wednesday to try to convince Americans he can make housing more affordable, but he’s picked a strange backdrop for the speech: a Swiss mountain town where ski chalets for vacations cost a cool $4.4 million.
On the anniversary of his inauguration, Trump is flying to the World Economic Forum in Davos — an annual gathering of the global elite — where he may see many of the billionaires he has surrounded himself with during his first year back in the White House.
Trump had campaigned on lowering the cost of living, painting himself as a populist while serving fries at a McDonald’s drive-thru. But in office, his public schedules suggest he’s traded the Golden Arches for a gilded age, devoting more time to cavorting with the wealthy than talking directly to his working-class base.
“At the end of the day, it’s the investors and billionaires at Davos who have his attention, not the families struggling to afford their bills,” said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal think tank.
Trump’s 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 to the chagrin of European allies — a headline likely to dominate his time in Davos, overshadowing his housing ideas.
Trump noted the Europeans’ resistance, telling reporters Monday night,
Surrounded by Billionaires in Davos, Trump Plans to Lay Out How He’ll Make Housing More Affordable
