Merkel, Macron take Davos spotlight ahead of Trump's arrival

Renaissance in French business?  I doubt it.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the main opening address, defending free trade.

Pretty cheeky, given the tremendous hostility India has to foreign companies operating in India.

Kaerimashita, what do you know about French economy , French people and business , before writing you doubt it ???

so basically this the entree before the main meal of trump?

An entree is the main meal. If this is the appetizer before the entree of Trump, it is a rancid, foul main course composed of a bumbling idiot intent on continue to diminish the US' standing.

Macron is the new deal,

yeah....for greedy billionaires.

A neo-lib jamboree. A former investment banker and a "Christian Democrat" telling us that giving away our manufacturing jobs, industrial assets and technology to China and having mass immigration at home is in the benefit of working people in the developed world, eh? That's becoming a tougher and tougher sell, for some strange reason.

Jeff: How does a country prevent manufacturing jobs from moving overseas?

Agreed, JeffLee. Davos always has been and always will be a globalist gabfest populated by crooks, hypocrites, and hangers-on hoping to pick up some crumbs. Trump is president of the US precisely because of attitudes like those espoused at Davos.

I do like the phrase “Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau weighed in”. The author must have a sense of humor, given the Castro-lover has all the gravitas and sense of a helium balloon.

Jeff: How does a country prevent manufacturing jobs from moving overseas?

By having a national industrial policy. That's what Japan had until the 90s and what China and South Korea have now.

Trump is on to this. Ever since he announced the stipulation for minimal US-made content in NAFTA automobiles and told Japanese and other carmaking CeOs to manufacture more in the US, the affected corporations have indeed pledged stepped-up investment and expansion for their US factories. A first step.

Lol you won't find "spray" cheese in Switzerland.

Jeff: Thanks for the reply.

How will the stepoed up expansion in the US affect consumer prices?