Davos 2018: Trump's trip to Switzerland could be cancelled if Congress can’t overcome DACA dispute
The forum in Switzerland will begin Tuesday
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Your support makes all the difference.President Donald Trump may not attend the annual Davos World Economic Forum if the federal government is still shut down.
Asked if the President would still make the trip to Switzerland this week, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders indicated that the prospects were increasingly slim.
“I don’t know that that’s very likely. I wouldn’t imagine it is,” Ms Sanders said. “Our priority is making sure that the government reopened and we start having the conversations that need to take place over the next couple of weeks.”
Mr Trump is slated to speak at the economic forum later this week, and aides have noted that he may still make it over there but the ongoing disagreements over federal funding in Washington could scrap those plans.
The American government has seen non-essential services shuttered since Friday night, when Congress failed to reach an agreement. It is the first time that the US government has seen a shutdown since 2013, when far right politicians like Senator Ted Cruz led an effort to try and force Democrats to defund Obamacare — and failed 17 days later.
This time, Democrats and Republicans have reached a standstill on several issues, including funding to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. That program’s future was thrust into uncertainty last year when Mr Trump announced that he would end the program, saying that Congress should act if it wants to maintain those protections for 700,000 young people who have benefited from them.
Mr Trump’s decision to attend the Davos forum — which is known for featuring A-list celebrities, billionaire bankers, and the world’s wealthy elite — was something of a surprise to begin with. Mr Trump ran a campaign in 2016 portraying himself as a populist champion wiling to stand up to the world’s wealth elite establishment, promising to help blue collar workers in America to regain financial footing.
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