Donald Trump resolves, at least with a temporary agreement with the Democrats, the problem of the shutdown, which risked blocking non-essential public services and also the salaries of employees (including the military), and flies to Davos. The World Economic Forum officially opens today in Switzerland, while the intervention of the president of the United States is expected on Friday.
But in the meantime the tenant of the White House, who has just celebrated his first year as president, is already causing discussion. In the context of a recovering global economy, with markets in turmoil these days and a global trend towards trade opening, Trump insists on protectionism: the new frontier are washing machines and solar panels, on which duties have been imposed at 30%, causing the inevitable reaction of Beijing, of the giants Samsung and LG and inducing South Korea - home of the most important producers in the sector - to announce an appeal to the World Trade Organization.
"The president's action once again clarifies the administration's intent to stand up for American workers," the Commerce Department said. But even in America there are those who disagree: the Solar Energy Industries Association - the US association of the solar industry, which represents a business of 28 billion dollars and which imports 80 percent of the installed panels from abroad - has found that the new tariffs "will create a crisis in a sector of the economy that has been a driving force” and warned that 23 jobs are at risk.
Exactly antipodes the position of Enel, on the other hand, is recording an acceleration in investments in renewable energies in the United States also during the presidency of Donald Trump, because he saw “an increase in opportunity”. This is what the managing director told Reuters TV Francesco Starace during an interview in Davos. "There is paradoxically an acceleration of investment in the US because we have seen the increase in opportunities in renewable energy in the period 2017-2018," Starace said in response to a question on the state of green investment under Trump, which took the US out by the Paris Agreements on climate change. “We have not had a negative impact of the Trump presidency so far,” added the CEO.
But Davos won't just talk about Trump and tariffs. Another major issue, which concerns Italy more closely, is that of the flat tax, after the International Monetary Fund, which recently promoted Italy, warned it of a new crisis by expressing more than a few perplexities about the tax formula proposed by the centre-right: "The flat tax has been adopted almost everywhere by new governments eager to give a signal of regime change, with more market-oriented policies. It remains unclear whether the flat tax is sustainable”.
