WEF 2026 shaping into ‘Trump Davos’ event: Tariffs loom over ‘most complicated geopolitical backdrop’

Thanks to the sweeping tariff regime that US President Donald Trump pushed into focus right after settling his second term of presidency of last year, his shadow had loomed large over global summits this past. The situation is far from settling down, as the 79-year-old Republican politician is headed back to Swiss Alpine town of Davos for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) this week.

If anything, Trump has only ramped up his efforts to shatter international order early into 2026 as well by threatening to impose tariffs on eight NATO allies if they don’t side with him in quest to take charge of Greenland. In addition to the global strife surrounding the issue of the Arctic island, the 56th WEF starting January 19 also comes hot on the heels of the US attacking Venezuela and capturing its then-leader Nicolas Maduro.

Capturing the essence of the high-stakes developments that have been leading up to the World Economic Forum 2026, Borge Brende, the WEF president, told Time Magazine, “We know that President Trump [and his] secretaries are very much into deal making, and to make deals, you have to have a dialogue.” Despite his assertion about the need for a “dialogue,” Brende ended up admitting that the biggest-ever Davos gathering set for this week was indeed taking place against “the most complicated geopolitical backdrop since the WEF was founded,” which was in 1971.

Here are some crucial pointers you should know about the forthcoming Davos 2026.

Trump to dominate Davos 2026

Some are already calling Davos 2026 as the ‘Trump Davos,’ as the POTUS will be coming to Swiss summit with the largest US delegation, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s presence at the event will also set the stage for crucial discussions on Gaza, Venezuela, Ukraine and Iran. Witkoff and Kushner are part of a founding executive board that will “oversee a defined portfolio critical to Gaza’s stabilisation and long-term success,” as per the White House’s official statement on Friday.

The duo is included in the appointees list for executive board alongside Rubio, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Apollo Global Management CEO Mark Rowan, World Bank President Ajay Banga and US Deputy National Security Advisor Robert Gabriel.

According to CNBC, the American president is scheduled to deliver his speech on Wednesday (US time). Moreover, reports by India’s CNBC-TV18 appeared to confirm that Trump will be in Davos for 24 hours or more.

While there, he is expected to speak about the “economy and measures for the American middle class.”

When and where is Davos 2026 taking place?

The 2026 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum is slated to take place from January 19-23, 2026, in Davos, Switzerland. Under its theme, ‘A Spirit of Dialogue,’ the global summit will see world leaders from government, business, civil society and academia convening in the Swiss town “to engage in forward-looking discussions to address global issues,” as per the official WEF website.

Who is coming to Davos 2026 / 56th WEF?

Davos 2026 prominently offers an “impartial platform to connect leaders to confront shared challenges and drive innovations defining the future.” This year’s international gathering in Switzerland is slated to be the biggest ever, with the World Economic Forum bringing together nearly 3,000 cross-sector leaders from over 130 countries on the same stage.

This year’s Davos event is on path to marking record levels of governmental participation, as 400 political leaders are scheduled to attend the multi-day discussions. The massive international group will include about 65 heads of state and government and six of the G7 leaders.

Any Indian ministers at Davos 2026?

Although the WEF website doesn’t mention prominent representatives of the Indian Government, at least four Union Ministers and six Chief Ministers from the South Asian country are expected to attend the event, alongside over 100 leading CEOs from India.

According to PTI, Indian officials set for the WEF gathering are:

Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Railways
Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare of India
Pralhad Joshi, Minister of New and Renewable Energy Govt of India
K Rammohan Naidu, Minister of Civil Aviation
Devendra Fadnavis, Maharashtra CM
N Chandrababu Naidu, Andhra Pradesh CM
Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam CM
Mohan Yadav, Madhya Pradesh CM
A Revanth Reddy, Telangana CM
Hemant Soren, Jharkhand CM
Harsh Rameshbhai Sanghavi, Gujarat Deputy CM
Smriti Zubin Irani, ex-union minister and chairperson of Alliance for Global Good: Gender Equity and Equality

Business leaders from India:

Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries
N Chandrasekaran, Tata
Sanjiv Bajaj, Bajaj Group
Hari S Bhartia, Bhartia Group
Sudarshan Venu, TVS
Anish Shah, Mahindra Group

Corporate leaders from India:

Amitabh Chaudhry, Axis Bank
Nadir Godrej, Godrej Industries Group
Sajjan Jindal, JSW Group
Nikhil Kamath, Zerodha
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Bharti Group
Nandan Nilekani, Infosys
Infosys CEO Salik S Parekh
Rishad Premji, Wipro
Prashant Ruia, Essar
Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm
Sumant Sinha, ReNew

Head of international organisations to be at Davos 2026:

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization
Ajay S. Banga, President of the World Bank Group
Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund
Mark Rutte, Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization
Alexander De Croo, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme
Mathias Cormann, Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union
Barham Salih, UN High Commissioner for Refugee
Jasem Al Budaiwi, Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council

Tech leaders at WEF 2026:

Jensen Huang, NVIDIA
Satya Nadella, Microsoft
Dario Amodei, Anthropic
Dina Powell McCormick, Meta
Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind
YoshuaBengio, Université de Montréal; Alex Karp, Palantir Technologies
SarahFriar, OpenAI
YuvalHarari, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, Mubadala
PeggyJohnson, Agility Robotics
Arthur Mensch, Mistral AI
BretTaylor, Sierra
PengXiao, G42
EricXing, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence

Civil society organisations’ leaders to be in Davos:

David Miliband, President and CEO, International Rescue Committee
Sania Nishtar, CEO, Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance
Luc Triangle, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation
Kirsten Schuijt, Secretary General, WWF International
Mohammad Al-Issa, Secretary General, Muslim World League
Comfort Ero, President and CEO, International Crisis Group
Pinchas Goldschmidt, Chief Rabbi and President, Conference of European Rabbis
Oleksandra Matviichuk, Nobel Peace Laureate and Chair, Ukraine Center for Civil Liberties
Peter Sands, Executive Director, The Global Fund
Amitabh Behar, Executive Director, Oxfam International
Aulani Wilhelm, President and Executive Director, Nia Tero