On the anniversary of his inauguration, President Donald Trump will travel to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday as he prepares a key address aimed at persuading Americans that he can make housing more affordable, according to the Associated Press.
The AP reported that Trump has chosen a striking backdrop for the speech: a Swiss mountain town where ski chalets for vacations cost about $4.4 million. It said Trump will be in the resort during the annual gathering of global elites, where he may see many of the billionaires he has spent time with during his first year back in the White House.
Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the liberal think tank Groundwork Collaborative, said Trump’s attention in Davos is on investors and billionaires rather than on families struggling to afford their bills. Jacquez’s criticism was reported by the AP as: “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,”.
The AP said Trump’s public schedules from his first year back show a shift away from pocketbook issues toward foreign policy conflicts involving Gaza, Ukraine and Venezuela. It reported that Trump is also intent on pursuing Greenland, and that the Greenland matter could dominate discussion in Davos and overshadow his housing message.
In comments to reporters Monday night, Trump said, “Let’s put it this way: It’s going to be a very interesting Davos.” The AP said the White House has tried to shift Trump’s focus toward affordability issues in part because of warning signs in polling ahead of midterm elections in a year when control of Congress is at stake.
The AP reported that about six in 10 U.S. adults say Trump has hurt the cost of living, based on the latest survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It said only 16% say Trump has helped “a lot” on making things more affordable, down from 49% in April 2024, when the AP-NORC poll asked Americans about his first term.
Frank Luntz, a Republican-affiliated pollster and strategist, said voters are more interested in the economy they are experiencing in their daily lives than in Trump’s relationships with billionaires, according to the AP. The AP reported Luntz’s view as: “If you’re asking me, ‘Are billionaires popular?’ The answer is no — and they’ve haven’t been for some time,”.
The housing pitch comes amid longer-running questions about the broader economy and inequality. The AP reported that since Trump’s first term began in 2017, the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans have seen wealth rise by $11.98 trillion to $23.46 trillion, citing figures from the Federal Reserve. It also said the bottom 50% of households’ net worth increased by $2.94 trillion over the same period.
The AP said cost of housing is a central voter concern and that Trump has floated proposals such as reducing interest rates on home loans by buying $200 billion in mortgage debt and banning large financial companies from buying homes. The AP also said one key problem in the housing market is a multi-year shortfall in home construction, alongside home prices that have risen faster than wages.
Trump has repeatedly highlighted investment commitments and relationships with wealthy figures as part of his economic narrative, the AP reported. It cited remarks from a September dinner with tech billionaires where Trump said, “There’s never been anything like it,” and “The most brilliant people are gathered around this table.”
In response to criticism that his approach favors the wealthy, the AP quoted White House spokesman Kush Desai saying the administration’s pro-growth policies and “friendly relationships with industry titans” are helping secure “trillions in investments that are creating jobs and opportunities for everyday Americans.” The AP also reported that Trump’s status as a billionaire has been portrayed by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt as a political advantage with voters, including when she said it is “one of the many reasons they reelected him back to this office, because he’s a businessman who understands the economy and knows how to fix it,”.