Explosive dinner in Davos lays bare gravity of Western divisions

While headlines from this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos were dominated by the US president’s fiery address — including the pointed threats related to Greenland — other moments at the gathering underscored the open realization by state leaders of the deeper unease in transatlantic relations. In contrast to the rhetoric from Washington, the leaders of Canada and Finland delivered unusually forthright speeches for Western leaders, calling for stronger European defence cooperation and warning that the rules-based international order was in “rupture.” Against that backdrop, a separate incident at the Swiss forum behind the scenes drew far less attention in the news, yet vividly illustrated the rift the Canadian prime minister alluded to.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, one of the most respected figures in global finance, abruptly left an invitation-only dinner during remarks by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to multiple media reports. Lutnick’s short address reportedly belittled European economies and questioned their competitiveness relative to the United States, making several European attendees visibly uncomfortable, people familiar with the matter said, as cited by the Financial Times.

The dinner, held on the second day of the forum, descended into uproar following Lutnick’s combative comments on European economies' lack of competitiveness compared to the US’s prowess, according to several participants. Jeering broke out in the room, prompting appeals for calm from BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink, who co-hosted the Davos forum this year and is serving as interim co-chair of the WEF.

Just days earlier, ahead of the US president’s January 21 speech in Davos and a day before the dinner, Lutnick had penned an opinion article for the Financial Times outlining the priorities of the American delegation. In it, he argued that the their goal of attending the forum, which, ironically, was being held under the theme “A spirit of dialogue,” was not to “uphold the status-quo” but to “confront it head-on.”

He also wrote: “We are here at Davos to make one thing crystal clear: With President Trump, capitalism has a new sheriff in town.”

Executives in the room described the mood as anything but conciliatory. One said the atmosphere was “tense,” while another characterized it as “noisy and spicy.” According to two executives present, one of those who reacted most strongly to the remarks was former US vice president Al Gore, who served under President Bill Clinton.

A spokesperson for the US Commerce Department denied claims that anyone left the room during Lutnick’s three-minute speech, but acknowledged that one person booed, naming Gore as that individual. Gore later addressed the episode in a statement released through a spokesperson. “I sat and listened to his remarks,” he said. “I didn’t interrupt him in any way. It’s no secret that I think this administration’s energy policy is insane. And at the end of his speech, I reacted with how I felt, and so did several others.”

The ECB declined to comment on the dinner incident, but Lagarde spoke the following morning in an interview conducted at the forum. Speaking to RTL radio, she said that “we are seeing the curtain come up on a new world order.” Referring to recent US rhetoric, she added:

“Threatening to take a territory like Greenland that is not for sale, and brandishing tariffs and restrictions on global trade, isn’t really behaving like an ally.” Lagarde argued that “this new world order must lead us to deeply revise the way we organize our economy in Europe, in the way we build ties with other countries in the world who play by the same rules as us.”

Fink, a US citizen himself, who leads the world’s largest asset manager — with stakes in many of the globe’s biggest companies — has been co-hosting this year’s Davos meeting alongside André Hoffmann, a Swiss national and vice-chairman of healthcare group Roche Holding. Ahead of the conference, Fink told the Financial Times that he saw his role as one of trying to “elevate everybody and have a serious conversation” at a time when the world is increasingly polarized and people “talk at each other, not to each other.”

However, the uncomfortable exchange involving one of Europe’s most prominent officials and a senior US representative appeared to run counter to that ambition. Although the forum concluded with the US president walking back the most alarming prospect looming over the event — the threat of US military action against Greenland — remarks by numerous leaders suggested that the transatlantic divide is no longer theoretical. In varying degrees of bluntness, state speakers signalled that the non-American West has been jolted awake to this reality.

An extraordinary summit of EU leaders in Brussels went ahead as planned the day after the US president’s Davos speech. Despite Trump backtracking on threats to impose punitive tariffs on countries opposing his Greenland plan, European leaders demanded respect after what they described as bringing the transatlantic alliance to the brink with his rhetoric.

With the Canadian prime minister warning that “middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” the French president insisting Europe does not want to be a “vassal” dependent on the US or China in technology, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb stressing the need for multilateralism, Lagarde’s abrupt exit during the US official’s tirade has taken on broader symbolism.

What this year’s forum appears to have achieved is a clearer alignment among the non-American members of the West in response to Washington — though whether that alignment translates into a renewed “spirit of dialogue” remains to be seen.

By Nazrin Sadigova