DAVOS, Switzerland—At the Davos economic conference, “it’s important to listen to the populists,” says the founder of the annual gathering of movers and shakers, adding that he hopes to welcome U.S. President Donald Trump “expressing his ideas” at the Swiss forum one day.
Critics often accuse the yearly World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps of being a snow-covered playground for well-heeled business and political elites. But founder Klaus Schwab said this year’s event, which opens Monday before a public start Tuesday, is reaching out to populist politicians who have ridden a wave of discontent among the masses.
“It’s important to listen to the populists, and actually we have several sessions where we deal with these issues, and we have representatives of populist parties here with us,” Schwab said in an interview Sunday with The Associated Press. “We have to take it (populism) seriously.”
For a forum that strives to take the pulse of the world each year and produce “a real hub of a global discussion,” Schwab said “it would be soundly unrealistic and far from realities if we did not integrate the concerns of populists very much into our own deliberation.”
