Surrounded by billionaires in Davos, Trump plans to lay out how he'll
make housing more affordable
[January 20, 2026]
By JOSH BOAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to use a key address
Wednesday to try to convince Americans he can make housing more
affordable, but he's picked a strange backdrop for the speech: a Swiss
mountain town where ski chalets for vacations cost a cool $4.4 million.
On the anniversary of his inauguration, Trump is flying to the World
Economic Forum in Davos — an annual gathering of the global elite —
where he may see many of the billionaires he has surrounded himself with
during his first year back in the White House.
Trump had campaigned on lowering the cost of living, painting himself as
a populist while serving fries at a McDonald's drive-thru. But in
office, his public schedules suggest he's traded the Golden Arches for a
gilded age, devoting more time to cavorting with the wealthy than
talking directly to his working-class base.
“At the end of the day, it’s the investors and billionaires at Davos who
have his attention, not the families struggling to afford their bills,”
said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork
Collaborative, a liberal think tank.
Trump's attention in his first year back has been less on pocketbook
issues and more fixed on foreign policy with conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine
and Venezuela. He is now bent on acquiring Greenland to the chagrin of
European allies — a headline likely to dominate his time in Davos,
overshadowing his housing ideas.
Trump noted the Europeans' resistance, telling reporters Monday night,
"Let’s put it this way: It’s going to be a very interesting Davos.”
The White House has tried to shift Trump's focus to affordability
issues, a response to warning signs in the polls in a year where control
of Congress is at stake in midterm elections.
About six in 10 U.S. adults now say that Trump has hurt the cost of
living, according to the latest survey by the Associated Press-NORC
Center for Public Affairs Research. It's an issue even among
Republicans, who have said Trump's work on the economy hasn't lived up
to their expectations. Only 16% say Trump has helped “a lot” on making
things more affordable, down from 49% in April 2024, when an AP-NORC
poll asked Americans the same question about his first term.
The president is banking on investment commitments from billionaires and
foreign nations to create a jobs boom, even as his broad tariffs have
crimped the labor market and spurred inflation. Trump supporters who
attend his rallies — which the president resumed last month — are left
to trust that Trump’s business ties can eventually help them.
This strategy carries political risks. Voters are more interested in the
economy they’re experiencing in their own lives than in Trump’s
relationships with billionaires, said Frank Luntz, the
Republican-affiliated pollster and strategist.
“If you’re asking me, ‘Are billionaires popular?’ The answer is no — and
they’ve haven’t been for some time,” said Luntz, who last year
identified “affordability” as a defining issue for voters.
Wooing billionaires instead of the working class
Since Trump’s first term in 2017, the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans have
seen their wealth increase by $11.98 trillion to $23.46 trillion,
according to the Federal Reserve.
The magnitude of those gains dwarfs what the bottom 50% of households —
the majority of the country — received during the same period. Their net
worth rose by $2.94 trillion, roughly one-fourth what the top 0.1% got.
One of the biggest concerns for voters is the cost of housing. In recent
weeks, Trump has floated proposals like reducing interest rates on home
loans by buying $200 billion in mortgage debt and banning large
financial companies from buying homes. Yet those efforts would do little
to address the core problem in the housing market: a multi-year
shortfall in home construction and home prices that have generally risen
faster than wages.
[to top of second column]
|
Trump regularly points to the investments made by the wealthy and
powerful as signs of economic growth to come. To encourage
billionaires to deliver, Trump in his first year pursued policies on
artificial intelligence and financial regulation that can benefit
the wealthy, along with tax cuts, reduced IRS enforcement and fewer
regulatory burdens for large-scale investments.
“Most billionaires don’t share the interests of the working class,”
said Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who
has written about the “wealthification” of U.S. politics. “The
ultrawealthy love tax cuts and deregulation, and those preferences
make it difficult for government to provide the help that working
class people want.”
Trump has been trying to sell tax breaks on tips and overtime pay
from what is known as the “ One Big Beautiful Bill ” as benefiting
workers. But a Congressional Budget Office analysis indicated that
middle-class families may only see savings of $800 to $1,200 a year,
on average, while the top 10% of earners would receive $13,600. A
separate analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a think tank, said those
earning above $1 million would save on average $66,510 this year.
The company Trump keeps
Trump regularly holds public events with the wealthy and powerful at
the White House and beyond. He jetted to the Middle East and Asia
with billionaires in tow as he had foreign countries announce
investment commitments, promising that the money would flow down
into factory jobs for the middle class.
At a September dinner with tech billionaires, Trump said it was an
honor to be surrounded by the likes of Bill Gates, Tim Cook, Sergey
Brin and Mark Zuckerberg.
“There’s never been anything like it,” Trump said. “The most
brilliant people are gathered around this table. This is definitely
a high-IQ group and I’m very proud of them.”
The White House said the previous Biden administration had alienated
the business community to the detriment of the economy. “President
Trump’s pro-growth policies and friendly relationships with industry
titans, on the other hand, are securing trillions in investments
that are creating jobs and opportunities for everyday Americans,”
White House spokesman Kush Desai said.
Last month, Trump celebrated a charitable contribution of $6.25
billion to the “Trump” investment accounts for children by Michael
Dell. It was a chance to talk about economic inequality — but also
another opportunity for Trump to showcase his relationship with
billionaires.
Trump takes phone calls from billionaires and CEOs to chat about
business, politics and interests such as his planned White House
ballroom. He regularly peppers his speeches with shoutouts to Nvidia
founder Jensen Huang, whose net worth was estimated by Forbes at
roughly $162 billion as of Sunday.
He’s installed billionaires in his inner circle such as Commerce
Secretary Howard Lutnick (net worth: $3.3 billion) and Special Envoy
Steve Witkoff (net worth: $2 billion). He put Elon Musk (net worth:
$780 billion) in charge of slashing government payrolls before a
dramatic falling-out and, later, a public reconciliation.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at a briefing last
month portrayed Trump’s own status as a billionaire as a positive
for him with voters.
“I think it’s one of the many reasons they reelected him back to
this office, because he’s a businessman who understands the economy
and knows how to fix it,” she said.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
