Davos Dispatch: Day 2

We’re still on the ground in Davos, so here’s a quick recap from day 2:

• Everyone’s now looking less Botoxed, more bloodshot. It’s partly the late-night parties (particularly the one starring BoJo and Milei). It’s partly how hard it is to get a quick bite to eat — shout-out to whoever invented these cheese vending-machines. But it’s also partly because of all the stress about what’s next.

• We’re not just talking about what’s next for European central banker Christine Lagarde, who we saw running around town amid rumours she wants to run WEF. Rather, the Alpine air is thick with stress about what’s next for our world.

• China’s He Lifeng (veep) surprised no-one with his usual warnings about “certain countries” (the US) dragging us to a world “where the strong will eat the weak.”

• The bigger surprise came from Canada’s Mark Carney, who scored an uncommon standing ovation for his remarkably sharp address:

  • Echoing earlier warnings from Germany’s Merz and others, Carney starkly declared the end of our world’s rules-based order

  • Yet he went further, arguing this order never really existed, but rather was just a pleasant US-led fiction that no longer makes sense: “You cannot ‘live within the lie’ of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.” [btw, Trump himself would nod along to that kind of line if it wasn’t directed at him]

  • And rather than fall back to a poorer and more fragile “world of fortresses”, Carney calls on fellow middle powers “to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together.”

  • The few critics we’ve heard on Carney’s ode to Finland’s “values-based realism” point out the optics of delivering a values-heavy message after coming in hot from visits to autocracies like China and Qatar. Or quoting Havel after those visits, when Havel also said “a state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbours as well”.

• Anyway, we’ve long heard these views whispered, or amplified across the emerging world, but Carney might go down in history as the first Western leader to lay it all out. The question on everyone’s lips is now how (or if) Trump might respond in his own Davos address later today (Wednesday).

Board Game

Boards are some of our favourite things: surfboards, hoverboards, smorgasbords…

But there’s a new board in town: President Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza.

He proposed it back in October as part of the Israel-Hamas truce, but headlines dried up (we were all a little distracted tbh) until last week, when the US shared more details.

So… who’s on board? (pun 100% intended) 

There’s one person whose participation is certain: Donald Trump. As chair, he’s claiming veto powers, agenda control, and even the right to select his successor.

You might’ve expected former British PM Tony Blair as another certainty, but word over the break was he’d been dropped, perhaps to mollify Middle Eastern leaders over his Iraq War role. He’s still listed on the Board, though there are rumours his role is now lighter.

The others in Trump’s first announcement are all US nationals, including Steve Witkoff (special envoy), Jared Kushner (son-in-law / advisor), Marc Rowan (Wall St billionaire), Ajay Banga (World Bank), Robert Gabriel (deputy natsec advisor), and Rubio (~everything).

Why so US-heavy? Our sense is it was tricky to get broader buy-in, so Trump opted to charge ahead into Phase Two of his Gaza plan while pressuring others to join.

But why so tricky? Capitals have quietly flagged a few Board concerns, including…

• a) the $1B fee for permanent membership (slated for Gaza’s reconstruction)

• b) the Trump-dominated structure (his is a lifetime chair role)

• c) fears Board membership will invite US pressure to send troops to Gaza

• d) mission creep (Trump says this Board could replace the UN), and…

• e) who else is involved.

On that last one (Board membership), Trump has now invited 60+ world leaders to maximise broader buy-in, which maybe makes sense until you recall…

• Inviting Putin 🇷🇺 is a shock for the continent he’s now attacking (Europe)

• Inviting Netanyahu 🇮🇱 is a non-starter for Erdogan 🇹🇷 (and vice versa)

• What are the chances Xi 🇨🇳 joins a board run by Trump (zero), and

• Some dislike a Gaza board without Gazans (who’d be a Netanyahu non-starter).

If you squint enough, it all looks like trying to organise an extended Thanksgiving when Uncle Gus still isn’t talking to Cousin Jennifer, who still hasn’t forgiven Grandma Gertrude.

A few have now joined, including Trump-friendly leaders in Argentina, Belarus, Hungary, Morocco, and the UAE, while POTUS has answered France’s ‘no’ with warnings of 200% wine tariffs until Macron joins! The beatings will continue until membership improves.

Anyway, the full Board reveal is slated for Davos tomorrow (Thursday), and you can bet US diplomats will be twisting arms right up to the buzzer.

Intrigue’s Take

You could pull on any of the above threads and get yourself a nice little podcast series, but let’s ask the obvious one: will this Board work? You might argue it’s already working in the unspoken sense of a placeholder to paper over Gaza’s vacuum-packed limbo, which at least extends the uneasy truce.

Yet any practical success depends not just on the Board’s pending membership, but also its expanding mandate. We say “expanding” not just because of the president’s “replace the UN” remarks, but because his draft Board charter doesn’t seem to mention Gaza! Rather, it now covers “areas affected or threatened by conflict” (aka the entire world).

And for all the UN’s flaws, that’ll still irritate UN Security Council members who rubber-stamped this Board on the grounds it’d oversee a technocratic Gaza, not set up some parallel structure then start passing the plate around for membership dues that’d eclipse the UN’s entire secretariat budget ($3.5B) with just four swipes of the national Amex.

Sound even smarter:

• It’s unclear if Putin’s invite is more US sweet-talking in hopes of Ukraine peace, or another example of Putin getting invited back to the red carpet, free of charge.

• Gaza’s reconstruction will cost at least $70B, according to UN estimates.

Meanwhile, elsewhere…

Extra Intrigue

The Intrigue jobs board 💼

• Programme Officer @ Barbados Red Cross in (can you guess?) Barbados

• Global Financial Crimes Operations Officer @ Morgan Stanley in Baltimore 

• Junior Professional @ Geneva Centre for Security Policy in (guess?) Geneva

• Partnerships Manager @ UNICEF in Beijing

Après Ski of the day

In the spirit of being stranded in Davos and desperate for a quick bite that doesn’t require a 30-year mortgage (way above diplomat pay grade), we want you to be fully and deeply aware that there is a ski-thru McDonald’s in Sweden.

Pictured above, it’s located at the Lindvallen ski resort tucked in Sweden’s Sälen mountains, over near the border with Norway (which, btw, is what an Australian might say if they saw the food prices here at Davos).

Anyway, we are not sponsored by McDonald’s, but still wholeheartedly endorse the idea of shredding it up on Scandinavia’s snowfields then gliding through the Golden Arches to punish a Quarter Pounder With Cheese^®. McDonald’s, call us 🤙

Today’s poll

Yesterday’s poll: What do you think of Europe's response on Greenland?

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💪 Strong, it'll make Trump back off (24%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 😨 Weak, Trump will double down (70%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write us!) (6%)

Your two cents:

• 😨 P.P: “With bullies talk is cheap whilst action is valuable. Show him that we mean what we say by selling a decent amount of US bonds.”

• ✍️ J.W: “The European response is not necessarily weak; however, Trump will still double down.”

• 💪 D.E: “Trump’s inner circle will find a way to distract him or convince him to claim a win in some other way.”