Trump to world at Davos: ‘Emulate the United States if you want your economies to grow’

President Donald Trump on Tuesday held up the American system of republicanism and free-market capitalism as models for the world’s countries to emulate if they want to experience similar growth and success.

Speaking to attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump touted his economic and trade policies as models for economic growth and empowerment of a nation’s people innovativeness and creativity, both of which lead to more individual freedom.

“A nation’s highest duty is to its own citizens,” Trump said at the annual conference in Switzerland. “Honoring this truth is the only way to build faith and confidence in the market system. Only when governments put their own people first will people be fully invested in their national futures.”

Trump noted that since he was elected, America gained over 7 million jobs, the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, as well as rising wages and household income, thanks to his economic agenda.

“A pro-worker, pro-citizen, pro-family agenda demonstrates how a nation can thrive when its communities, its companies, its government work together for the good of the whole nation,” the president said.

He then championed his economic nationalist agenda in a free market system as a model for the world.

“Today I hold up the American model as an example to the world of a working system of free enterprise that will produce the most benefits for the most people in the 21st century and beyond,” he said.

As he has done in the past, Trump also criticized past trade deals he said put Americans and the country at distinct disadvantages.

Such deals gutted American industry and allowed other nations to growth wealthy at Americans’ expense.

“I think it’s primarily the reason that I ran,” Trump said, recalling how previous administrations allowed jobs and factories to leave the country.

He then criticized so-called experts who have routinely, over decades, predicted doom and gloom citing things like overpopulation, food shortages, and global warming.

“We must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortunetellers,” Trump said.